Compress PDF
Free online tool to compress PDF files and shrink their size right in your browser. Open one PDF or a whole batch of up to 30, pick a quality preset - from Keep text (reorganize only) to Light, Balanced, Strong or Smallest - and instantly see an estimated size before you commit. One click compresses the entire list, a live before-and-after bar shows exactly how much you saved in total, and every file gets its own download button plus a Download all as ZIP option. You can fine-tune the resolution (DPI) and image quality yourself or switch to grayscale for even smaller files. Everything runs on your device and your files are never uploaded, so sensitive documents stay 100% private. No sign-up, no watermark and no file-size limits beyond your own device memory. Works on desktop and mobile.
Drop your PDF files here
or tap to choose them — add one PDF or a whole batch, pick a quality preset, and shrink them all right in your browser
📄 Choose PDF filesLower resolution and quality make a smaller file. The level you pick applies to every PDF in the list. Advanced settings apply to the image presets only.
Your compressed PDF is ready
Your ad blocker is preventing us from showing ads
MiniWebtool is free because of ads. If this tool helped you, please support us by upgrading for ad-free browsing and more daily uses, or allowlist MiniWebtool.com and reload.
- Allow ads for MiniWebtool.com, then reload
- Or upgrade for ad-free browsing and higher daily limits
About Compress PDF
The Compress PDF tool shrinks the file size of one PDF — or a whole batch of them — right inside your browser. Drop in as many PDFs as you like, pick a single quality preset for the lot, watch a live estimate of the new total size, then download each smaller file or all of them as one ZIP. Because everything happens locally on your device, your PDFs are never uploaded to any server, which makes it safe for scans, contracts, bank statements, portfolios and any other private document you would rather not send to the cloud.
How to Compress a PDF
- Add your PDF files. Drag one file or a whole batch onto the drop area, or click Choose PDF files. Every file appears in a list with its page count, size and a first-page thumbnail, and you can drop in more at any time or remove one with the ✕ button. They are read in your browser and stay on your device.
- Pick a compression level. Choose Keep text, Light, Balanced, Strong or Smallest. The level applies to every file in the list, and a live estimate — sampled from your own pages — shows the total size and the percentage saved before you commit.
- Fine-tune (optional). Turn on Grayscale for scanned text, or open Advanced to set the resolution (DPI) and image quality yourself.
- Compress and download. Click 🗜 Compress PDF. Files are processed one after another with a progress bar, the before-and-after bar shows exactly how much you saved in total, and each result gets its own download button — plus Download all as ZIP when you compressed more than one.
Which Preset Should I Use?
| Preset | Resolution | Best for | Text stays selectable? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📝 Keep text | Unchanged | Files where selectable, searchable text must survive | Yes |
| 🟢 Light | 150 DPI | High-detail documents where quality matters most | No (rasterized) |
| ⭐ Balanced | 120 DPI | Everyday use — the recommended default | No (rasterized) |
| 🔻 Strong | 96 DPI | Email attachments and web uploads | No (rasterized) |
| 🗜 Smallest | 72 DPI | Screen-only scanned documents | No (rasterized) |
What Makes This Compress PDF Tool Different
No upload, no cloud processing, no account. The compression runs in JavaScript on your own device, so confidential files never leave your computer or phone.
Queue up to 30 PDFs, pick one quality level for all of them and compress the whole list in a single click. Every file keeps its own download button, and a ZIP button bundles them together.
See the projected file size and percentage saved before you commit — the estimate is sampled from a real page of your own document, not a generic guess.
Five one-tap presets for common needs, plus Advanced sliders to dial in the exact resolution and image quality, and a grayscale mode for scans.
Need searchable text? The Keep text preset re-saves the file losslessly with compact streams instead of turning pages into images.
How the Compression Works
The image presets use a technique called downsampling. Each page is re-drawn onto a canvas at a lower resolution, then re-encoded as a JPEG at a chosen quality level, and a brand-new PDF is assembled from those images. Fewer pixels and lighter JPEG encoding mean a dramatically smaller file — which is why the biggest savings come from scanned or image-heavy PDFs. The trade-off is that rasterizing turns selectable text into a picture. When you must keep the text layer, the Keep text preset re-saves the document with compact object streams and does not rasterize the pages at all.
Common Uses
Shrink a scanned contract so it fits an email size limit, compress a photo-heavy portfolio or brochure before uploading it to a job or grant portal, reduce a bulky slide-deck export for sharing, or make a multi-page scan small enough for a government or bank upload form that caps file size. Batch mode is built for the jobs where the files arrive in bunches: a folder of scanned receipts for an expense claim, every page of a mortgage application, a term's worth of lecture handouts, or an entire set of invoices that all have to squeeze under the same upload limit.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this Compress PDF tool free and private?
Yes. It is completely free and runs entirely in your web browser. Your PDF is never uploaded to any server, so it stays private on your own device, and the compressed file has no watermark and needs no sign-up.
How does the compression work?
For the image presets the tool re-renders each page at a lower resolution and re-encodes it as a JPEG at a chosen quality, then rebuilds a new PDF from those images. Lower resolution and quality mean a smaller file. The Keep text preset instead re-saves the file with compact object streams so the text layer stays selectable.
Which preset should I choose?
Balanced is recommended for most files. Use Light when quality matters most, Strong or Smallest for email attachments and scanned screen-only documents, and Keep text when you must preserve selectable, searchable text.
Will compressing reduce the quality of my PDF?
The image presets do reduce quality slightly, because pages are downsampled and re-encoded as images — that is where the savings come from, and it also turns text into a picture. If you need selectable text, use the Keep text preset, which does not rasterize the pages.
Why did my file not get smaller?
Some PDFs, especially plain-text documents that are already optimized, cannot be shrunk by rasterizing and may even grow. The tool detects this, tells you so, and lets you keep your original file instead of downloading a larger one.
Is there a file size limit?
There is no fixed limit. Because the work happens in your browser, the only practical limit is your device's memory. Very large or high-page-count PDFs simply take a little longer to process.
Can I compress several PDFs at once?
Yes. Drop or choose as many PDFs as you like, up to 30 at a time. They appear as a list, the preset you pick applies to all of them, and one click compresses the whole batch file by file. Each result gets its own download button and, when there is more than one, a Download all as ZIP button as well. If a file in the batch cannot be opened it is simply skipped and the rest still finish.
Can I use different settings for different files?
One preset applies to the whole batch — that is what makes one-click processing possible. If a particular file needs its own settings, remove the others with the ✕ button, compress it on its own, then add the rest back.
Reference this content, page, or tool as:
"Compress PDF" at https://MiniWebtool.com/compress-pdf/ from MiniWebtool, https://MiniWebtool.com/
by miniwebtool team. Updated: Aug 11, 2026
PDF Tools:
- Add Page Numbers to PDF New
- Compress PDF New
- Delete PDF Pages New
- JPG to PDF New
- Merge PDF New
- PDF Flatten Tool New
- PDF Page Extractor New
- PDF to JPG New
- PDF to Text Extractor New
- PDF Word Counter New
- Protect PDF New
- Reorder PDF Pages New
- Rotate PDF New
- Split PDF New
- Unlock PDF (Owner-Password Removal) New