ShrinkPDF

Compress a PDF to 1 MB.

A scanned contract or a slide deck comes in under 1 MB at the Balanced level. Drop the file and check the size before you upload.

ShrinkPDF
Drop PDFs here
or a link to a PDF
QualityImages 150 dpi, text untouched
Files never leave your device

What fits in 1 MB

1 MB is the first limit where a whole document fits, not just a page. At the Balanced level (images at 150 dpi) a scanned A4 page is roughly 80 to 250 KB, so a four- to ten-page scan fits and stays sharp enough to read fine print. At Smaller (72 dpi) a page is 30 to 90 KB and the budget stretches to ten pages of dense text or thirty of forms. A presentation exported from PowerPoint or Keynote with photos on every slide drops from 20 MB to under 1 MB at Balanced, because the photos are the whole file.

Where the 1 MB limit shows up

  • GST registration (India): proof of the principal and additional places of business and the proof of appointment of the authorised signatory go up as "PDF or JPEG", "maximum file size for upload of as 1 MB". The signatory's photograph is limited to 100 KB.
  • APPSC (Andhra Pradesh Public Service Commission): every certificate from Class X onwards is uploaded as PDF, "1 mb Max", and the file name may not contain spaces.
  • Indian e-Visa: the photograph is a JPEG of up to 1 MB. The passport page is a separate PDF with a 300 KB limit.

Steps

  1. Drop the PDF into the tool above.
  2. The size next to the file name updates when compression finishes. Under 1 MB: download.
  3. Over: switch the level to Smaller, or see below.

If it is still over 1 MB

  • Switch to Smaller. For a rental agreement or a bank statement, 72 dpi is readable and cuts the size to about a third.
  • Remove pages that are not asked for. A lease has annexes; the portal wants the pages with the address and the signatures. Print those pages to a new PDF and compress that.
  • Rescan at 150 dpi in greyscale. A 600 dpi colour scan of a printed agreement is thirty times larger than it needs to be, and downsampling a heavy scan is never as clean as scanning light in the first place.
  • Look for embedded attachments. A PDF can carry other files inside it. If a text-only document is several megabytes, that is usually why; export it again from the source.

Frequently asked

Balanced or Smaller?

Balanced first. It keeps images at 150 dpi, which is what a screen shows anyway, so a reviewer sees no difference. Use Smaller when Balanced lands over the limit or when the portal is one that counts every kilobyte.

Will the compressed PDF pass a portal's format check?

Yes. The output is a standard PDF written by Ghostscript. Some portals also reject files with spaces or special characters in the name; the tool keeps your file name and adds -compressed, so rename the result before uploading if the portal is strict about that.

Why is the first file slow?

The compression engine is a 10 MB download the first time you use the tool on a device. After that it is cached and every file starts immediately.

Does the document get uploaded to compress it?

No. The engine runs inside your browser. A lease, a bank statement or a tax document stays on your device, and nothing is stored after you close the page.

Nearby limits: 500 KB, 2 MB. All sizes: compress a PDF to a target size.

Ready? Drop your PDF into the tool at the top of this page.

Compressed on your device, never uploaded. No sign-up.

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Size limits on this page were checked on .