Compress a PDF to under 1 MB
CVs, portfolios and reports under a 1 MB limit with the lightest compression that fits.
- Nothing is uploaded
- Works offline after first visit
- Open source
- No watermark · limit is your device’s memory; phones hold less
Get a CV, portfolio, report or scan under a 1 MB upload limit with text kept sharp. It is free, needs no account and adds no watermark, and your files are not uploaded: everything runs in your browser on your device. The size limit is your device’s memory, and phones hold less; give the page a short while after one visit to save itself for offline use, and then it works offline.
Done
Open the network tab. Your files never appear in it.
Add files and run the tool to see every request this tab makes.
Your files are processed on this device and never sent to a server. Reload the page to clear everything from memory.
A 1 MB cap is common on job boards and applicant tracking systems, grant and course applications, and support ticket forms. The files that break it are usually a CV with a large photo or a design-heavy template, a portfolio exported at print resolution, or a report full of screenshots.
Those shrink well without losing their text: the page first rewrites the file losslessly, then recompresses the embedded pictures at quality 75 and 2400 pixels, which looks the same on screen, and only goes lower if it has to. Applicant tracking systems read the text of your CV, so keeping it as real text rather than a flattened picture matters, and the result card tells you whether that happened.
A long scanned document may need its pages flattened to fit; for anything under about 15 pages, recompressing the scan images is usually enough.
Portfolios are the other common case. Design tools export every image at full print resolution, so a 12-page portfolio can easily reach 30 MB. Capping the pictures at 2400 pixels keeps them sharp on a 4K screen, and the file usually drops well under 1 MB without anyone who opens it noticing a difference. Keep the full-resolution export for printing or for a client who asks for it.
How it works
- Drop the PDF.
- Keep 1 MB or change it.
- Press Compress to 1 MB and check the result card for the step used.
In your browser, not on a server
Lossless cleanup rewrites the PDF with pdf-lib using compressed object streams. Image recompression uses pdf.js to find embedded images, re-encodes each one at a lower quality on a canvas, and pdf-lib swaps the new streams in. Flatten renders every page to an image at the resolution you pick. Each mode runs entirely in your browser.
Compared with upload-based tools: PDF compressors online are the most upload-hungry tools there are, because the whole document has to go up before anything happens. Here a 50 MB scan is processed without a single byte leaving your machine.
Verify it yourself. Give the page a short while after one visit to save itself for offline use, then turn off Wi-Fi or switch to airplane mode and run the tool again. Or open your browser's developer tools (F12, or Cmd-Option-I on a Mac), pick the Network tab, and watch it while you convert. The panel above does the same count for you.
Questions
Will my CV still be readable by applicant tracking systems?
Yes, as long as the result card does not say the pages were flattened: the lossless and image steps keep the text exactly as it was. A text-based CV over 1 MB is almost always a large photo or background image, which the image step shrinks.
How much quality is lost?
For a typical design-heavy PDF, none that you can see on screen. Photos are re-encoded at quality 75 and capped at 2400 pixels, still well above what a screen shows. Print at large sizes from the original.
Can I compress several PDFs at once?
Yes. Drop them all; each is fitted separately and they download together as a zip.
What happens if my PDF cannot get under 1 MB?
The page says so instead of pretending. The result line gives the smallest size it reached and the step that produced it, and suggests splitting the file into parts. A PDF that is already under 1 MB is returned as it is, with a note that the original was kept.
Is the file uploaded anywhere?
No. There is no server in this process. The page is a static file and the work is done by code running inside your browser tab. Give the page a short while after one visit to save itself for offline use; then you can turn off Wi-Fi and it still works.
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