Compress a PDF to email size
Attachment bounced? Gmail caps outgoing mail at 25 MB and Outlook.com at 20 MB (checked July 2026) — and because attachments are encoded for transport, the practical ceiling is roughly a quarter smaller than the advertised number. A 30 MB scanned contract has no chance; even 20 MB is dicey cross-provider.
This page runs the compressor with the Balanced preset — about 200 DPI for embedded scans and photos, the point where files get dramatically smaller and documents still read crisply on screen. Typical phone-photo scans drop by 60–85%; your mileage is stated honestly in the before → after readout, not promised in advance.
Email preset: Balanced (~200 DPI) — usually far under attachment caps.
Drop your PDF here
Or click to browse. Processed on your device, never uploaded.
How it works
- Drop the PDF that bounced.
- Keep Balanced (or pick Strong if it’s still too big — the levels are honest about their trade-off).
- Click “Compress PDF” and read the before → after size.
- Download and attach. If it still exceeds the cap, see the splitting tip below.
When compression can’t get you under the cap
A 200-page color scan may simply contain more image data than 20 MB can hold at readable quality — no honest compressor fixes that. The email-native solution is splitting: send part 1 and part 2 as separate messages, which every mail system accepts and every recipient understands. The dishonest solution — crushing images until they’re unreadable — we don’t offer.
Also worth knowing: the constraint is often the recipient’s provider, not yours. Gmail-to-Outlook effectively means the 20 MB Outlook cap governs. Aiming under 15 MB leaves margin for the transport-encoding overhead on both ends.
Good to know
- Metadata is stripped by default — attachment metadata (author, edit history) has a way of saying more than the sender intended.
- Recurring problem with scans? Set your scanner to 200 DPI grayscale for text documents — files start life 5–10× smaller than 600 DPI color.
Frequently asked questions
What size should I actually aim for?
Under 15 MB sends reliably everywhere; under 10 MB is courteous for recipients on slow connections or mobile. The compressor’s readout tells you exactly where you landed.
Why does my 22 MB file bounce from Gmail if the limit is 25 MB?
Transport encoding (base64) inflates attachments by about a third in transit, so ~18 MB of file is the realistic Gmail ceiling — and the recipient’s cap applies too. This is why “just under the limit” files bounce mysteriously.
Is emailing the compressed PDF as private as compressing it was?
Compression here is private by construction — the file never leaves your device. Email itself is only as private as email is; for genuinely sensitive documents consider a more secure channel regardless of size.