Most online PDF compressors give you one option: compress. You click a button, something happens, and you hope for the best. That is not good enough when the file matters.
I Love PDF gives you full control over exactly how your PDF is compressed, the same level of control professionals pays for in desktop software, available free in your browser. If you are working with multiple files, you can also merge them into one PDF before compressing to keep everything in a single, smaller document.
This is where ILovePDF is different. Instead of a single compress button, you choose exactly how your PDF is processed. If you need to edit the content of your PDF before compressing, use our PDF Editor first, then come back to reduce the file size.
Drag and drop your file directly onto the page, click to upload from your computer, or import directly from your Dropbox account. There is no file size limit, so upload files of any size without restriction.
Select your preferred image quality, resolution, colour conversion, and multimedia handling. If you are unsure where to start, medium quality at 100 PPI with no colour conversion works well for the majority of documents.
Click the Compress PDF button. Your file is processed and ready in under a minute.
Your compressed PDF is available for immediate download. If you need to make further adjustments to the document, you can rotate pages or split the PDF into separate sections after downloading.
Not sure where to start? Here are the most common scenarios and the settings that work best for each one.
Choose Medium image quality at 72 or 100 PPI with no colour conversion and multimedia set to Discard. This produces the smallest possible file that remains perfectly readable on any screen, keeping you well within Gmail's 25MB and Outlook's 20MB attachment limits.
Choose Good image quality at 200 PPI with no colour conversion and multimedia set to Keep. This gives you a professional quality result with a noticeably smaller file size, suitable for sending to clients or uploading to a shared drive.
Choose Best image quality at 300 PPI with no colour conversion and multimedia set to Keep. This applies minimal compression and preserves maximum quality for long-term storage. If you are archiving multiple documents, consider using our merge PDF tool to combine them into a single compressed archive file.
Choose Good image quality at 300 PPI with Grayscale conversion and multimedia set to Discard. This produces a print-ready file with colour removed and results in a significantly smaller file than compressing in colour at the same resolution.
Choose Medium image quality at 72 PPI with no colour conversion and multimedia set to Discard. This produces a fast-loading file optimised for web viewing, ideal for PDF uploads to online portals, application forms, or website downloads.
Yes, every file uploaded to I Love PDF is transferred using SSL encryption, the same security standard used by banks and e-commerce platforms worldwide. Your file is processed on our servers and automatically deleted after 1 hour. We do not store, read, share, or sell your files or their contents at any point during the process.
For sensitive documents like contracts, medical records, or financial statements, your privacy is fully protected from upload to deletion. If your PDF is password protected and needs to be unlocked before compressing, you can use our unlock PDF tool to remove the password first and then return to compress the file.
No, we have no file size limit for PDF compression. You can upload and compress PDFs of any size, completely free, with no account required.
Results depend on the content of your PDF and the settings you choose. Image-heavy documents like presentations and scanned files typically compress by 40 to 80 percent. Text-heavy documents like contracts and reports compress by 10 to 30 percent since there are fewer images to reduce.
If you want to further reduce a text-heavy PDF, consider using the split PDF tool to remove pages you don't need before compressing.
PPI stands for pixels per inch and controls the sharpness of images inside your PDF. 72 PPI is standard screen resolution where images look perfectly sharp on a monitor but may appear soft if printed.
300 PPI is the standard for professional printing where images stay sharp both on screen and on paper.
No, text in a PDF is stored as vector data, not as an image. It is not affected by compression settings at all and will remain perfectly sharp regardless of the quality or resolution settings you choose.
Grayscale converts all colour images in your PDF to black and white during compression. This reduces file size more aggressively than colour compression alone and is particularly useful for documents that will be printed in black and white or where colour carries no meaningful information.
Any embedded audio or video files inside the PDF are permanently removed during compression. This often produces a significantly smaller file than image compression alone.
Choosing to keep multimedia preserves these files exactly as they are in the original.
Yes, ILovePDF works in any mobile browser on iPhone and Android. Open the site in Safari or Chrome, upload your file, choose your settings, and download the compressed result with no app installation needed.
Your file is automatically deleted from our servers 1 hour after processing. It is not accessible to anyone else during that period and is permanently removed when the hour is up.
Once you have compressed your PDF, you might also need one of these:
to combine multiple compressed PDFs into a single file for easier sharing and storage.
to separate a large PDF into individual pages or smaller sections before or after compressing.
to convert your compressed PDF into a fully editable Word document.
to fix page orientation on any pages that are sideways or upside down.
to remove password protection from a locked file before compressing it.
