Compress PDF
To compress a PDF, add it below and choose a quality: the embedded photos are re-compressed and resized in your browser, and metadata is removed. The PDF is never uploaded.
About the Compress PDF tool
You can compress a PDF entirely in your browser — no software to install, no file upload, and no account required. The conversion runs on the pdf-lib and pdf.js libraries, running as plain JavaScript directly on your device.
What gets smaller (and what doesn't)
Most of a large PDF's size is usually its embedded JPEG images, such as scans and photos. This tool re-encodes those at the quality you choose (80% by default) and shrinks any larger than the maximum size (1600px by default; 800, 1200 and 2400px are also available). Title, author and other metadata are stripped.
Text and vector graphics aren't touched, so they stay perfectly sharp. Images stored in other formats are left as they are, so text-only PDFs, or PDFs whose images aren't JPEG, may barely shrink.
Choosing settings
- Email attachment or upload limit: try 70–80% quality with 1200px
- Documents you'll print: keep 1600px or 2400px
- Scanned documents usually shrink the most
How to compress a PDF privately
Every step below runs on the pdf-lib and pdf.js libraries, running as plain JavaScript inside this browser tab. Your .pdf file is never uploaded to a server — there's no network request carrying it anywhere.
Add your PDF file
Drag and drop, or click to select, a file (.pdf). It's read straight from disk into browser memory — no upload step exists.
Compress locally
FreePrivateConvert does this with the pdf-lib and pdf.js libraries, running as plain JavaScript, entirely within this browser tab.
Download the result
Save your new file. It only ever existed in this tab's memory — closing the tab without downloading discards it completely.
Troubleshooting
- The file barely got smaller
- Its size probably comes from text, fonts or non-JPEG images, which this tool doesn't re-encode. Lowering quality won't help much in that case.
- Images look too blurry
- Raise the quality slider or choose a larger maximum image size, then compress the original again.
FAQ
- Is my file uploaded anywhere?
- No. Your file is read and processed inside this browser tab and never leaves your device. You can confirm it in your browser's developer tools: the Network tab shows no upload.
- Does it reduce quality when you compress a PDF?
- Only embedded JPEG images change: they are re-encoded at the quality you choose (80% by default) and shrunk if larger than the maximum size (1600px by default). Text and vector graphics are untouched, so they stay perfectly sharp.
- Is there a file size limit?
- Yes: 200MB per file. There's no account and no limit on how many files you convert.
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