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How-to guide

How to shrink a PDF so it fits in an email

Gmail, Outlook, and most other providers cap attachments at around 20-25MB combined. A scanned document or a PDF full of high-resolution photos can blow past that easily.

Why PDFs get too big for email in the first place

The most common culprit is a scanned document saved at a high DPI, or a report with full-resolution photos pasted in at print quality when web/email quality would look identical on screen. Neither needs to stay at that resolution for something that will just be read on a screen or reprinted at normal size.

Shrinking it for email

  1. Open the Compress PDF tool.
  2. Drop in the oversized file.
  3. Choose a compression level — for email attachments, a moderate setting is usually more than enough since most recipients are viewing on a screen, not printing at large size.
  4. Check the resulting size against your email provider's limit, and download.

If it's still too big

If a heavily compressed file is still over the limit, consider whether the document actually needs to be sent as one file — splitting it into logical sections, or sharing via a cloud link instead of an attachment, both sidestep the size cap entirely.

Ready to try it yourself?

Shrink your PDF for email →

Frequently asked questions

What's the typical email attachment size limit?+

Most major providers cap attachments around 20-25MB, though the effective limit is often lower once you account for encoding overhead.

Will the recipient notice the compression?+

At a moderate setting, most people won't notice a difference when viewing on a screen or printing at standard size.