Email bounced because the attachment is too big. Upload form caps at 5 MB and your scan is 18 MB. The fix is the same in every case: compress the PDF. Most "big" PDFs are big because of high-resolution scans or photos embedded inside — and those images can be shrunk without touching the text.

Quick answer

Open the Compress PDF tool, drop your file, pick Recommended, download. Usually 2–3× smaller, text stays selectable, nothing uploaded.

Step-by-step

Go to getconvertify.me/compress-pdf.
Drop the PDF (or click to choose).
Pick Recommended (best for email) or Aggressive (smallest file).
Click Compress PDF.
Download compressed PDF.

How much smaller?

Real-world results on scanned documents and image-heavy PDFs:

Recommended — typically 2–3× smaller. 18 MB scan → ~6 MB.
Aggressive — typically 3–5× smaller. Same scan → ~3.5 MB.

Text-only PDFs barely shrink because there's nothing to compress — the tool will tell you "already optimized" instead of giving you a worse copy.

What it does (and doesn't) touch

Compresses: embedded raster images (scans, photos, screenshots) by downsampling and re-encoding as JPEG.

Does not touch: text, fonts, vector graphics, form fields, or annotations. Selectable text stays selectable, search keeps working, copy-paste still works.

Private — runs in your browser

The whole pipeline runs locally via WebAssembly. Your contract, medical scan, or tax return never leaves your device. No account, no watermark, no server queue.

Why not just "rotate-and-save" in Preview / Acrobat?

Acrobat's "Reduce File Size" works but costs $20/month. macOS Preview's compression is aggressive but unpredictable — sometimes it ruins the text. Convertify gives you two predictable presets and shows you the before/after delta so you know what you got.

Common questions

Will text get blurry? No. Text is left alone. Only images are downsampled.

What's the max file size? A few hundred MB on desktop, depending on your browser memory. If you hit a wall, split the PDF first.

Does it work on phone? Yes — and the download uses the native share sheet on mobile.

Is there a daily limit? Free tier: 3 compressions a day. Upgrade for unlimited.

Compress a PDF now →