How to compress a PDF locally

A PDF can be larger than it needs to be — leftover metadata, or high-resolution scanned pages. Compressing it makes the file easier to email or upload elsewhere.

PDFPrivy compresses locally in your browser, with two modes so you can choose the right trade-off between size and quality. Nothing is uploaded.

Steps

1. Open the Compress PDF tool and choose your file.
2. Pick a mode: Safe cleanup (non-destructive) or Image compression (for scans and image-heavy PDFs).
3. For Image compression, choose a quality preset — lighter keeps more detail, stronger shrinks more.
4. Run the compression and compare the resulting size.
5. Download the smaller PDF. If the result would not be smaller, the original is kept unchanged.

Your files stay in your browser

Compression runs locally in your browser; your file is not uploaded to our servers and no account is required.

The rasterization used by image compression also happens on your device — the page images are never sent anywhere.

When to use this tool

• Use Safe cleanup when you want to keep text selectable and pages sharp — it strips metadata and re-saves, so the reduction may be small or none.
• Use Image compression for scanned or image-heavy PDFs where a big size reduction matters more than selectable text.
• You need to get under an email or upload size limit without an online service.

Limitations and honest caveats

• Safe cleanup is non-destructive and may only shrink the file a little — or not at all, in which case the original is returned unchanged.
• Image compression is destructive: it rebuilds pages as images, which removes selectable and searchable text, links, and form fields.
• The quality presets are quality levels, not a target final file size. There is no “compress to an exact number of KB” option, and compression never runs OCR.

Frequently asked questions

Will compression upload my PDF?

No. Both modes run locally in your browser and your file is not uploaded to our servers.

Which mode keeps my text selectable?

Safe cleanup keeps text selectable. Image compression rebuilds pages as images and removes selectable text.

Can I compress to an exact file size?

No. The presets set a quality level, not a target size. You choose a quality and see the resulting size.

What if the file does not get smaller?

If the result would not be smaller than the original, the original file is returned unchanged.