Compress PDF Without Losing Quality
Upload up to 10 PDFs, choose a compression level and click Compress PDFs. PDFYork compresses the file structure in your browser without lowering image quality, then shows the original size, new size and percentage saved for each file.
Before you start
- Where your file is processed
- In your browser. The file is read and processed on your device and is not uploaded to PDFYork.
- Account
- Not required. Without an account you can run 3 tasks per day across all tools. A free account raises the limit.
- Cost
- Premium tool. Free accounts get 3 premium tasks per day. After that, each task uses 100 credits, deducted when you download the result.
How to Use
Add PDFs
Drop one PDF, or up to 10 for batch compression.
Pick a level
Low applies the most compression, Maximum the least. Medium is a sensible default.
Optional: remove metadata
Tick "Remove metadata" to clear title, author and similar properties at the same time.
Compress and compare
Click Compress PDFs, check the size saved for each file, then download them individually or as a ZIP.
What this compressor does
PDFYork's compressor is lossless. It works on the structure of the file rather than the pictures inside it:
- It compresses any uncompressed streams (page content, fonts and other data) with Flate compression.
- At the Low and Medium levels it also removes duplicate objects and tidies the internal cross-reference data.
- At the Low and Medium levels it packs objects into compressed object streams, which saves space in files with many small objects.
It does not downsample or re-encode images. Photos and scans keep their resolution, which is why text and pictures look identical after compression.
Which compression level to choose
| Level | What is applied | When to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Low | Stream compression, duplicate removal, new compressed object streams | Smallest result. Try this first for email attachments. |
| Medium | Same as Low, keeping existing object streams | Balanced default for most documents. |
| High | Stream compression, existing structure kept | Files that must stay structurally close to the original. |
| Maximum | File rewritten without extra compression | Only when you want to clean up a file without changing it further. |
How much smaller will my PDF get?
It depends on how the file was made. Exports from older software, reports with many repeated elements and files saved without compression often shrink noticeably. PDFs that are mostly scanned images or photos usually shrink very little, because almost all of their size is image data that this tool leaves untouched. The result screen shows the exact saving, so you can try another level or keep the original.
If the file is still too big
- Remove pages you do not need with Delete Pages, or send only the relevant section using Extract Pages.
- Remove embedded files with Extract Attachments or Sanitize PDF; attachments can be much larger than the pages.
- For scans, rescanning at 150 to 200 DPI in greyscale usually produces a far smaller file than any compressor can.
Use Cases
Email attachment limits
Shrink a report exported from older software so it fits under an email provider's attachment limit.
Upload portals
Reduce the size of forms and certificates before uploading them to a university or government portal with a size cap.
Archiving many files
Compress a batch of 10 PDFs in one go and download them as a ZIP for storage.