Compress a PDF to under 2 MB
For the upload form that refuses anything over 2 MB. Drop the file in and it compresses until it fits — no settings to guess at.
How to get a PDF under 2 MB
- Choose the PDF the form rejected. It starts working immediately.
- It compresses, measures, and tries again harder until the file is under 2 MB.
- Save the result and upload it. The size is shown so you can see it fits.
Why 2 MB, and why this is its own page
The 2 MB ceiling turns up constantly on government portals, university application systems, court e-filing and visa forms. It is almost always a hard limit: the form simply refuses the file, usually after you have filled in everything else.
A general compression tool is awkward for this because it asks you to pick a quality level and then hope. Strong might overshoot and make the scan harder to read than it needed to be; Light might leave you at 2.4 MB and still rejected. Neither tells you whether you have actually solved the problem.
This page does the loop for you. It compresses, measures the result, and if it is still too big tries a stronger setting — stopping at the first one that fits. Your document therefore loses exactly as much quality as the limit forces and no more, which matters when the thing you are uploading is a scanned certificate someone has to read.
What gets compressed is the images inside the file. Text, fonts and vector graphics are copied through untouched, so the document stays searchable and the text stays selectable, which some portals check for. And since the work happens in your browser, the passport scan or bank statement you are uploading to the portal is not also being uploaded to us on the way.
Questions about the 2 MB limit
What if it cannot get under 2 MB?
It tells you, and gives you the smallest version it managed. That happens with documents of many high-resolution scanned pages, where there is a floor below which the images stop being legible. Splitting the document and uploading it in parts is usually the way through.
Will it still be readable?
In almost all cases yes. It stops at the first setting that fits rather than going straight to the most aggressive one, so a file that only needed a little compression only gets a little.
Does the text stay selectable?
Yes. Only the embedded images are re-encoded. That matters for portals that run checks on the uploaded document, and for anyone who needs to search it later.
Is 2 MB the same as 2 MiB?
This tool targets 2 MiB — 2,097,152 bytes — which is what operating systems and upload forms almost always mean by "2 MB". It is the larger of the two readings, but it is the one that matches what the form measures.
Is my document uploaded anywhere?
No. It is compressed by your own browser on your device. Given that these forms are usually asking for identity documents, financial records or medical evidence, that is the point of doing it this way.