How to compress a PDF for email
Most email services refuse attachments larger than about 20–25 MB, and many work inboxes set lower limits. Here's how to get a PDF under the limit in a minute, without uploading it anywhere.
Compress a PDF nowWhy is my PDF so big?
Almost always because of pictures: scanned pages, phone photos, or high-resolution images placed in the document. Text takes very little space; a 100-page text document is often under 1 MB.
So the trick is to shrink the pictures, not the text. pdfSofo only re-compresses images; text stays sharp and searchable.
Shrink it step by step
- Open pdfSofo's Compress tool and add the PDF (or drag it onto the page).
- pdfSofo measures four options on your actual file: Original, Tidy, Email size and Smallest, and shows the real size of each.
- Pick Email size first. Look at the preview on the right and zoom in to check photos and small print.
- If it's still too big, try Smallest. Then download and attach it to your email.
Which option should I choose?
- Tidy: same quality, removes wasted space. Good when the file is only slightly too big.
- Email size: pictures to about 150 dpi. Usually the best balance for scans and photos.
- Smallest: pictures to about 96 dpi. Great for sharing quickly; fine detail in photos gets softer.
If even Smallest is too big, split the PDF into two files and send two emails (the Split tool does this in seconds).
Questions
Will compressing make the text blurry?
No. Only images are re-compressed. Text and lines stay exactly as they were.
Is my file uploaded?
No. pdfSofo runs in your browser, so the file is read and compressed on your own device.
What if it barely gets smaller?
Then the PDF is mostly text and already small. Large text-only PDFs usually have extra embedded fonts or images; Tidy removes what it can.