Compress PDF for Email
Shrink a PDF under 5 MB, 10 MB or 25 MB so it fits inside Gmail, Outlook or WhatsApp attachment limits.
Drop your PDF here or click to browse
PDF or image files supported
Target attachment limit
Compress a PDF for email (5 MB, 10 MB or 25 MB)
One-click PDF shrink that targets the exact attachment size limit of Gmail, corporate email or WhatsApp — no guesswork.
Compress PDF for Email is a preset-driven version of the regular Compress tool. Instead of asking you what "medium" or "high" compression means, it asks the question you actually care about: which email service is this going to? Pick Gmail (25 MB cap), corporate mail (10 MB is a common corporate policy cap), or WhatsApp / SMS share (5 MB — the file uploads and previews faster on mobile). The tool then compresses your PDF until it drops under that number.
It uses the same iterative compression engine as Reduce PDF under the hood — text stays crisp because compression only re-encodes images, and it keeps stepping the image DPI and JPEG quality down until the target size is met or the file cannot shrink further. If your PDF is mostly text, you will usually see it hit the target on the first pass. If it is scan-heavy or photo-heavy, expect a couple more passes.
How to use it
- 1Upload the PDF you want to email.
- 2Pick the target size preset: Under 5 MB (WhatsApp / SMS), Under 10 MB (corporate email), or Under 25 MB (Gmail / most email).
- 3Press Compress for Email.
- 4The compressed PDF downloads automatically with a filename that includes the target size (e.g.
report-under-25mb.pdf). - 5The tool also shows the exact before / after size and whether it managed to hit the target — if not, try a smaller preset or use Reduce PDF for even more aggressive shrinking.
Real-world use cases
- Squeeze a scanned contract under Gmail's 25 MB attachment limit before you hit Send.
- Prepare a receipt bundle for a corporate expense system that caps attachments at 10 MB.
- Send a proposal over WhatsApp Business without the file previewing forever on the recipient's phone.
- Fit multiple photo-heavy PDFs inside a single email that already has other attachments.
- Reduce a marketing brochure before uploading it to a portal with a strict attachment cap.
Supported formats & limits
Input: any PDF (up to about 100 MB). Output: a compressed PDF that fits under the chosen email limit whenever mathematically possible. Text stays sharp; embedded images are re-encoded at lower DPI/quality.
Privacy
Your uploaded file is written to a temporary folder on our server, processed, and deleted by the operating system as soon as the request finishes — typically within seconds. Nothing is stored in our database. Traffic is encrypted over HTTPS.
Full details in the Privacy Policy.
Frequently asked questions
Which email service has which attachment limit?▾
Gmail and Outlook cap attachments at 25 MB. Yahoo Mail is also 25 MB. Many corporate mail servers are stricter — 10 MB is the common corporate policy. WhatsApp allows 100 MB for documents but files under 5 MB preview and open dramatically faster on mobile.
What if my PDF is already smaller than the target size?▾
The tool still runs a quick lossless optimisation pass and returns the smaller-or-equal file. You never get a file larger than what you uploaded.
Will the text look blurry after compression?▾
No. PDF compression only re-encodes embedded images — the text layer is copied unchanged. If your PDF is a pure scan (an image of text with no text layer), the whole thing is treated as an image and will lose some crispness at aggressive settings. Use OCR PDF first to add a text layer before compressing scans.
How is this different from the regular Compress PDF tool?▾
The regular Compress tool aims for maximum shrinkage without a specific target. This tool aims for a specific number — Gmail's 25 MB, corporate 10 MB, or WhatsApp-friendly 5 MB — and stops the moment your file fits, so you get the best quality that still fits the limit.
What if the file still can't get small enough?▾
The tool returns the smallest it could produce and warns you that the target wasn't hit. Try a lower preset, or use Reduce PDF to type a custom target size (down to 20 KB). For extreme cases, use Split PDF to send the document in two smaller emails.