Compress PDF
Shrink PDF size without losing quality.
Most PDFs are larger than they need to be. Trim them for email, upload, and storage — without the blurry-text trade-off you get from print-to-PDF tricks.
Available on iOS and Android · Free to try
Why PDFs get so big
Three things make PDFs heavy: high-resolution images, embedded fonts, and scanned pages saved at print quality. Most documents have at least one of those, which is how a five-page contract ends up at 18 MB and bounces off Gmail's 25 MB attachment limit.
The common workaround — print to PDF at lower quality, or take screenshots and reassemble — works but degrades the document. Text gets fuzzy. Signatures look smudged. Once you've done that to a contract or invoice, you can't get the original quality back.
Proper compression rewrites images at sensible resolutions, subsets fonts, and re-encodes scanned pages without distorting them. The result keeps text crisp at any zoom level and shrinks the file by 60–90% on typical documents.
What the PDF Editor app does
Smart compression
Automatically detects image-heavy vs text-heavy PDFs and applies the right strategy.
Three quality presets
High (minimal compression), balanced (best for most files), and small (aggressive size reduction).
Preview before saving
Compare original and compressed side by side. See the size drop and the visual diff.
Optimized for scans
Scanned pages get a separate treatment — black-and-white conversion or smart re-encoding.
Batch compress
Queue multiple PDFs and compress them with one tap. Useful for archiving receipts or invoices.
Keeps your file private
All compression runs on-device. No upload to a third-party service.
How to compress a PDF
- 1
Open the PDF Editor app
Tap the Compress tile on the home screen.
- 2
Add the PDF you want to compress
Import from Files, iCloud Drive, Google Drive, or any app via the share sheet.
- 3
Pick a preset
Balanced works for almost everything. Use Small for email-bound files, High when print quality matters.
- 4
Tap Compress
The app shows progress and the resulting file size. Most files take a few seconds.
- 5
Compare and save
Preview pages, confirm quality is still good, then save or share.
Compressing on the go
The classic 'this attachment is too large' moment usually happens on a phone — at an airport, in a cab, mid-conversation. Doing it natively means you're not bouncing your contract through a web tool you've never heard of just to email it. Compress, attach, send — all from the same app.
Compress PDFs on the go.
Free for everyday use. Available on iOS and Android.
Frequently asked questions
- Typically 60–90% smaller. Image-heavy PDFs see the biggest reductions; text-only PDFs are already small and benefit less.
- Balanced mode keeps text and signatures crisp. Small mode applies stronger image compression — fine for email, less ideal if you'll print on glossy paper.
- Yes. Scanned PDFs often compress dramatically because the original images are at print resolution. The app re-encodes them to a sensible screen-friendly size.
- Yes, as long as you can open the file. Enter the password when prompted, compress, then re-apply protection on save if needed.
- Zipping a PDF rarely helps — PDFs already use internal compression. Recompressing the images and fonts inside the PDF is the only effective approach.
Compress PDFs on the go.
Free for everyday use. Available on iOS and Android.