Compress PDF for Email: Stay Under Gmail’s Attachment Limit
Practical ways to shrink PDFs for Gmail and Outlook without turning text into mush—especially for scanned pages.
Gmail and many portals enforce attachment caps (often around 25 MB total, with stricter form limits at 2–5 MB). Scanned PDFs and embedded high-DPI images are the usual culprits.
If the PDF came from Word or Docs, light compression that packs objects and strips redundant metadata often helps without touching text sharpness. If pages are scans, target ~150 DPI for screen reading—still crisp on phones and office printers while cutting size dramatically.
Do not flatten everything to tiny JPGs first unless you must. Prefer a dedicated Compress PDF pass, then check file size before attaching.
Use Compress PDF on pdf.pixelskits.com privately in the browser, then attach with confidence. Merge first if you have many small files; compress once at the end.
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