Shrink a PDF without uploading it anywhere.

Lossless cleanup or image re-encoding — pick your preset. Your PDFs never leave your device.

Free · No upload · No signup · No ads · Works offline
Trusted since 2004 · Used by teams at Stanford · Virgin Media · UNC Chapel Hill · BBB A+ rated
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Connected — privacy mode available

You don't need the internet. Disconnect and watch the tool work.

Online

🔒 Verify the privacy claim yourself

The simplest way to confirm your PDFs never leave this device:

Disconnect from the internet.

Turn off your Wi-Fi → compressing keeps working. The banner up top turns green.

Compression preset

Lossless
Keeps text · best default
High quality
180 DPI · color
Balanced
120 DPI · color
Maximum
75 DPI · grayscale
Custom
Pick your own
Lossless rewrites streams with deflate & object streams — keeps text selection. Best default for most PDFs. Raster modes re-encode each page as a compressed image — most effective when the PDF contains large or uncompressed images. They also turn text into an image (no selection or copy-paste). We always run lossless as a baseline and download whichever result is smallest, so picking a raster preset never makes things worse.

or drop PDF files here

No upload No signup Any size No ads Works offline Free
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0 files loaded into your browser. Nothing has been uploaded.

How this compares to Adobe, iLovePDF, and Smallpdf

Six differences that matter when you use a PDF compressor daily.

Adobe / iLovePDF / SmallpdfCompress (this page)
Upload PDF to their server✓ Runs locally in your browser
Free tier caps file size or files-per-day✓ No cap, no daily limit
Requires signup / account for larger files✓ No account, no email
Ads and upsell popups✓ No ads, no upsell
Internet required to process✓ Works offline once loaded
Single strategy (usually always raster)✓ Tries lossless + raster, keeps smaller result

Frequently asked questions

Is it really free? Any hidden limits?

Yes, free. No signup, no per-day cap, no maximum file size other than what your browser can hold in memory. Essex Software makes desktop PDF tools; this browser tool is a companion to those.

Are my PDFs uploaded anywhere?

No. Compression happens entirely in your browser tab. Verify it yourself: disconnect from Wi-Fi after the page loads — the tool keeps working. The privacy banner up top turns green when it confirms you're offline.

How much smaller will my file get?

Depends on the source. Text-only PDFs shrink modestly with the Lossless preset (typically 5–20%). Image-heavy PDFs (scans, portfolios) shrink dramatically with a raster preset (often 60–90%). The tool always tries lossless AND your selected raster preset, then downloads whichever result is smaller — so picking a raster preset never makes things worse.

Will it break text selection or copy-paste?

Not for the Lossless preset — that's why it's the default. The High / Balanced / Maximum / Custom presets re-encode each page as an image, which turns text into pixels (no selection, no copy-paste, no accessibility). Pick a raster preset only when file size matters more than text extraction.

What about compressing hundreds of PDFs at once?

This page compresses however many PDFs you drop into it, one at a time. For genuine batch pipelines — hundreds of files per run, unattended, with retention of file names and folder structure — see our desktop tool Batch PDF Merger. It compresses as part of the merge step and runs on Windows without opening a browser.

Works on every device you use

iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, or any modern browser — same tool, same code, same privacy.

iOS
Android
macOS
Windows
Web