How Do I Reduce PDF File Size for Email Attachment?

Most email providers cap attachments at around 25 MB (Gmail and Outlook included). If your PDF is over the limit, here are three reliable ways to shrink it.

1. Compress the PDF

The fastest fix. A compressor downsamples images and subsets fonts, often cutting size by 50–90% with little visible change. Start here — it solves most cases on its own.

2. Downsample or remove heavy images

If a few high-resolution photos or scans dominate the file, reducing them to 150 DPI (screen quality) makes the biggest difference. Removing decorative images entirely helps too.

3. Split the document

When a file is large because it is genuinely long, split it into parts and send them across separate emails, or extract only the pages the recipient needs.

If it still will not fit

Upload to cloud storage and email a link instead — this also avoids attachment scanners stripping the file.

Shrink your file in seconds with Compress PDF, or break it up with Split PDF.