How to shrink a PDF so you can email it

1 min read·23 July 2026

The attachment limit for email is between 10 and 25 MB at most providers. Is your PDF too large? With PDFrust you reduce the file size in seconds without quality loss.

Why is my PDF so large?

PDFs grow large because of embedded high-resolution images, embedded fonts, and for scanned documents a high DPI setting. A scanned A4 sheet at 300 DPI in colour can easily be 2-5 MB per page.

How do I compress a PDF?

Upload your PDF on the Compress page of PDFrust. Choose a quality level: High preserves almost all quality, Medium is the best balance for email, Low gives the smallest file size for situations where quality matters less. Click compress and download.

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How much smaller will it get?

That depends on the content. A PDF with photos and images can become 70-80% smaller. A PDF with only text and vector graphics will shrink less, because text is already stored compactly.

Alternatives when compression is not enough

Split the document into several smaller files and send them separately. Or use cloud storage (Google Drive, Dropbox) and send the link instead of the file. The Split tool on PDFrust helps you cut the document into pieces.