Compress PDF Online — Adobe Acrobat Online Compress PDF Alternative
Upload a PDF, see what is actually in it, and compress it with a setting that matches your document — or tell us the exact size you need, like under 10 MB or 5 MB. Free, with no sign-up.
- 1 Upload
- 2 Choose Settings
- 3 Download
Step 1 of 3: Upload your PDF
Drop your PDF file here
or choose a file from your device
PDF only • Up to 50 MB
Drag & drop • Click to browse • No signup required
Your file is sent over an encrypted connection and processed temporarily. Your original is never modified.
- 1 Upload your PDF
- 2 We analyze it & recommend a setting
- 3 Pick a mode or a target size
- 4 Download your smaller PDF
Drop several PDFs here
or choose files from your device — up to 20 at a time
PDF only • Up to 50 MB each
Each file is compressed independently — one bad file will not stop the rest. Your originals are never changed.
- 1 Add up to 20 PDFs
- 2 Choose one setting for all of them
- 3 Compress All
- 4 Download each file or a ZIP
Reading your PDF…
- Sent over an encrypted HTTPS connection
- Deleted automatically, normally within 60 minutes
- No registration needed · Privacy Policy
Compress PDF
Review the analysis, pick a setting, then download a smaller PDF.
- 1 Upload
- 2 Choose Settings
- 3 Download
Step 2 of 3: Choose a compression setting
Your PDF is ready
These numbers are estimates based on your file’s page count and size — the actual result depends on what compression finds and may vary.
Why is this PDF large?
Compression mode
Lower image resolution usually produces a smaller PDF, but scanned documents and photos may lose detail.
Colour mode
Your settings are ready.
What will compression change?
Usually changed
- Reduces image resolution when appropriate
- Re-encodes images
Usually preserved
- All pages
- Text (never recompressed)
- Document structure
Depending on the settings you choose, image quality may decrease, and a PDF with very unusual embedded features may not shrink as much as a typical document.
- Tip: start with Balanced, check the result, and only use Maximum Compression if the file is still too large.
- Tip: a target size is best-effort — we try increasingly strong settings and stop as soon as it is met.
Compressing your PDF…
0%
Uploading your file…
Before & After
Especially useful for scanned documents — compare the same page at the same zoom.
What went wrong?
Compression Report
Save to Cloud (Optional)
Keep your file safe and accessible from anywhere.
Pick a folder in your own account, or share the file straight from here.
Useful Tips
- Still too large? Try Maximum Compression or a smaller target size.
- Only embedded pictures are re-encoded — text is never touched.
- Need to remove pages first? Try Delete PDF Pages.
✨ Did you know? You can also merge, split, convert and more — all in one place!
Explore All ToolsWhat would you like to do next?
Compress Multiple PDFs
One shared setting, applied to every file below.
Your files are ready
Estimates based on each file’s page count and size — the actual result depends on what compression finds and may vary.
Compression mode (applied to every file)
Colour mode
Add at least one PDF to continue.
| File | Size | Pages | Type | Status | Result | Compare |
|---|
What went wrong?
Analyze, choose a setting or target size, then download.
Getting started
- Upload your PDF, or drag it onto the box.
- Review the analysis — page count, size and the recommended mode.
- Choose a mode, or switch on a target size.
- Confirm and download the compressed PDF.
Key concepts
- High Quality / Balanced / Maximum
- Three ready-made trade-offs between file size and image quality. Balanced suits most documents.
- Custom
- Set the JPEG quality, image resolution and colour mode yourself.
- What is compressed
- Only embedded images are re-encoded. Text and document structure are never touched.
- Your original
- It is never changed. You always get a new file.
Target size
Turn on “Compress to a target size instead” and choose a preset or type your own MB value. We try increasingly strong settings and stop as soon as the target is met. If even our strongest setting cannot safely reach it, we return the smallest result we could achieve and say so plainly.
Keyboard shortcuts
- Enter confirm & compress · Esc close a dialog
- ? open this help panel
Did you know? Switching to another tool in the sidebar carries your file over automatically — no need to re-upload.
Still stuck? Read the questions below or contact support and we'll help.
Adobe Acrobat Online Compress PDF: What Users Should Know
People searching for Adobe Acrobat online compress PDF are usually looking for one thing: a way to make a PDF smaller in a browser, without installing anything. PDFCherry is an independent, free alternative that does exactly that — it is not made by Adobe, not affiliated with Adobe, and not an “official” Acrobat tool. If you specifically need Adobe’s own product, look for it on Adobe’s website.
What PDF compression actually does, in any tool: it re-encodes the embedded images in a PDF at a lower quality and, often, a lower resolution, and tidies the file’s internal structure. Text and layout are not touched by image compression. The amount you can shrink a file by depends almost entirely on what is inside it — a PDF full of high-resolution scans or photos has a lot of room to shrink; a PDF that is mostly text has very little.
Online compression like this one works by reading your file, re-encoding its images according to the quality/resolution/colour settings you choose (or that a target size works backward from), and generating a new PDF. Quality and file size are always a trade-off: pushing the size down further means accepting softer images at some point. This tool lets you see that trade-off before you commit, and lets you try a different setting afterward without starting over.
Why Is Your PDF So Large?
A handful of real, common causes account for most oversized PDFs:
- High-resolution images. Photos or graphics saved at print resolution (300 DPI or more) are far larger than they need to be for screen reading.
- Scanned pages. A scanned document is usually one full-page image per page, with no separate, compact text layer.
- Embedded fonts. Some PDFs embed entire font files rather than referencing standard fonts.
- Duplicate images. The same logo or photo can end up embedded more than once.
- Large metadata or attachments. Some PDFs carry extra embedded files or data most readers never see.
- Poor original image compression. Images are sometimes saved at unnecessarily high quality in the first place.
Upload your file above and the analysis panel will tell you which of these looks most likely for your specific PDF, instead of guessing in the abstract.
How to Compress a PDF Online
Upload your PDF.
Review the analysis and recommended mode.
Choose High Quality, Balanced, Maximum, Custom, or a target size.
Download your smaller PDF and check the before/after comparison.
Choosing a Compression Mode
| Mode | Best for | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| High Quality | Contracts, legal documents, reports, printing | Smaller size reduction, closest to the original |
| Balanced (Recommended) | Email, applications, school submissions, general sharing | Noticeable reduction, easily readable images |
| Maximum Compression | Upload limits, email attachments, storage | Smallest file; images may look softer when zoomed in |
| Custom | Anyone who wants to set quality, resolution and colour directly | You control every trade-off yourself |
Compress PDF to a Target Size
If you need a PDF under a specific limit — a portal that rejects anything over 10 MB, an email system that caps attachments at 5 MB — turn on “Compress to a target size instead” and pick Under 20 MB, Under 10 MB, Under 5 MB, Under 2 MB, Under 1 MB, or type your own number. The tool works out the required reduction and tries increasingly strong settings until it meets the target, stopping as soon as it does.
This cannot be guaranteed for every file. A scanned 80-page PDF asked to fit under 1 MB will need very aggressive settings, and the result will say so plainly rather than quietly handing back a file that is technically small but barely legible.
How to Compress a PDF to 10MB
Choose the Under 10 MB preset. Most scanned or image-heavy PDFs up to roughly 30-40 MB can reach this comfortably with Balanced-level settings; larger files may need Maximum Compression or grayscale.
How to Compress a PDF to 5MB
Choose Under 5 MB. This usually needs stronger image compression than 10 MB, and grayscale can help a lot if colour is not essential.
How to Compress a PDF to 2MB
Choose Under 2 MB. For anything beyond a short document this typically means a visible drop in image sharpness — check the before/after comparison before you rely on the result.
How to Compress a PDF to 1MB
Choose Under 1 MB. This is realistic for short, mostly-text documents or a handful of pages; a long scanned document may not get there without black-and-white conversion, and the tool will tell you if that is the case rather than overpromising.
How to Reduce PDF File Size Without Losing Too Much Quality
“Without losing quality” depends entirely on what is in your source PDF. A few practical approaches:
- Start with High Quality or Balanced rather than jumping straight to Maximum Compression.
- Only lower the image resolution as far as your viewing need actually requires — 150 DPI is plenty for on-screen reading.
- Convert to grayscale only when colour is not meaningful to the document.
- Check the before/after comparison before you send or submit the result.
How to Compress a Scanned PDF
Scanned PDFs are usually full-page images, so they respond well to image-resolution reduction. Balanced compression is a reasonable starting point; if the scan is of plain text and does not need to stay in colour, grayscale or even black & white can shrink it much further while keeping the text legible. This tool does not perform OCR (optical character recognition) — it reduces file size, it does not add a searchable text layer to a scan.
How to Compress a PDF for Email
Attachment limits vary by provider — commonly somewhere between 10 MB and 25 MB, though some are stricter. Use the target-size feature and enter your provider’s actual limit rather than guessing.
How to Compress a PDF for Online Upload
Upload portals (job applications, government forms, school systems) often enforce strict limits, sometimes as low as 2-5 MB. Check the portal’s stated limit first, then use the matching target-size preset here, or enter the exact number as a custom target.
Your PDF Is Too Large? Try This
- Upload it above.
- Review the analysis and start with Balanced compression.
- Check the estimated and then the actual output size.
- If it is still too large, turn on a target size instead.
- Use Maximum Compression, or grayscale/black & white, only if you still need it smaller.
If the file is still too large after that:
- Lower the image resolution further in Custom mode.
- Convert to grayscale, or black & white for text-only scans.
- Remove pages you do not need with Delete PDF Pages before compressing.
- Split a long document into smaller parts with Split PDF.
Why Didn’t My PDF Get Much Smaller?
This is common and usually means one of the following, not that anything went wrong:
- The PDF is mostly text or vector graphics, which compression barely affects.
- Its images were already compressed efficiently.
- The PDF was exported from software that already optimizes file size.
Image-heavy PDFs and scans have the most compression potential; a text-based PDF that is already well-built may only shrink a few percent, and that is the expected, honest result — not a failure.
Common PDF Compression Problems
Problem: The compressed file barely got smaller
Solution: this usually means the PDF is mostly text or was already optimized. Try Maximum Compression or Custom image settings — if the size still barely changes, there simply is not much to compress.
Problem: Images look noticeably blurrier after compressing
Solution: switch to High Quality, or in Custom mode raise the image quality and resolution. Check the before/after comparison before relying on the result.
Problem: Text became hard to read
Solution: text is never recompressed by this tool, so if text looks different it was likely already like that in the original, or the page is a scanned image rather than real text (which no PDF compressor can sharpen).
Problem: Hyperlinks, bookmarks or form fields seem to have disappeared
Solution: compression here only re-encodes images and packs the file’s internal structure; it does not remove links, bookmarks or form fields. If something is missing, check whether the original file had it in the first place, or try Remove PDF Annotations or Clean PDF only if you intended to strip that content.
Problem: Compression is taking a long time
Solution: large or image-heavy PDFs, and target-size jobs that must try several settings, take longer. Let it run; if it times out, try again or use a less aggressive target.
Problem: My target size could not be reached
Solution: the result screen tells you plainly when this happens, along with the smallest size actually achieved. Try a larger target, Maximum Compression, or a grayscale/black & white conversion.
Problem: The file will not upload
Solution: confirm it is a real PDF under the size limit shown above. Password-protected files need to be unlocked first with Unlock PDF.
Compress PDF FAQ
How do I compress a PDF online?
Upload your PDF, review the analysis, choose a compression mode or a target size, then download the result. No installation or account is required.
How much can a PDF be compressed?
It depends entirely on the file. Scanned or photo-heavy PDFs commonly shrink by 50-80%; text-based PDFs often shrink by only a few percent because there is little to recompress.
Does compressing a PDF reduce quality?
Image quality can decrease depending on the setting you choose; text is never recompressed and stays exactly as sharp and searchable as the original.
Can I compress a PDF to 1MB?
Often, for short or mostly-text documents. Longer scanned documents may need grayscale or black & white to get there, and the tool will say so if 1 MB is not realistically achievable without heavy quality loss.
Can I compress a PDF to 2MB, 5MB or 10MB?
Yes — use the matching target-size preset, or enter a custom number. The tool tries increasingly strong settings and stops as soon as your target is met.
Can I compress a scanned PDF?
Yes, and scanned PDFs usually have the most compression potential since each page is essentially one image. This tool does not add OCR text to a scan — it only reduces file size.
Why didn’t my PDF get smaller?
Compression mainly targets images. A PDF that is mostly text, or whose images were already well compressed, will see a small reduction — that is expected, not an error.
Is online PDF compression safe?
Your file is sent over an encrypted connection and processed in an isolated job folder. Your original file is never modified, and uploaded and output files are deleted automatically a short time after processing — see the retention time shown on this page.
Does PDF compression change the text?
No. Only embedded images are re-encoded; the underlying text and document structure are left as they were.
Can I compress multiple PDFs at once?
Yes. Switch to the “Multiple PDFs” tab, add up to 20 files, choose one mode or target size for all of them, and download the results individually or together as a ZIP.
Is there a file-size limit?
Yes, shown on this page (currently up to the maximum listed above per file).
Are my uploaded files stored?
No. Files are processed temporarily and deleted automatically a short time after processing, as shown on this page.
Privacy & Security
Secure PDF Processing
Your PDF is transferred over an encrypted HTTPS connection and processed in an isolated job folder. Your original file is read, never modified — compression always produces a new, separate output. Uploaded files and results are deleted automatically a short time after processing, as shown on this page. Read our full Privacy Policy or Contact Us with any questions.
Ready to Compress Your PDF?
Upload your file, see what is inside it, and choose a setting that actually fits. Free, with no sign-up.
Upload Your File