PDF Medic OnlineCompress PDF to 5 MB
Make a PDF smaller than 5 MB for an upload form — the box below is already set.
Files never leave your device
How to Compress PDF to 5 MB
- Press Choose a PDF, or drop it on the box above. Nothing is sent anywhere; your browser does the work.
- Leave Fit a size selected, with 4850 in Must be under (KB).
- Press Compress PDF and wait. Big photo files take longer, because every photo is saved again, sometimes at more than one level.
- Look at a photo or two at full size, then press Download.
The PDFs that go over 5 MB
Most are full of photos: pictures of damage for an insurance claim, an inspection or site report, a property listing, a portfolio, a school project. A phone photo is usually a few MB on its own, and JPG to PDF keeps every photo at its full size, so five or six photos can be enough to pass 5 MB. Long scanned documents are the other usual cause.
Typed pages in the same file barely count: a page of writing usually takes only a few KB. So the size of a report is mostly the size of its photos, and compressing it leaves the writing exactly as it was.
How many photos keep Best quality
5 MB is roomy enough that a handful of photos often keep the gentlest level. These are our test results with 4850 in the box:
- One to five pages, each with a detailed 12-megapixel test photo (about 3.5 MB per photo): Best quality. Five photos came to about 4.7 MB.
- Six to twelve such photos: Balanced. Six came to about 2.1 MB and twelve to about 4.1 MB.
- Letter pages scanned in color at 300 dpi (about 2.2 MB each): up to four at Best quality (about 4.4 MB), six at Balanced (about 3 MB), and ten to twenty at Small (twenty came to about 4.6 MB).
What Best quality and Balanced keep in a photo
Best quality keeps up to 2400 pixels on a photo’s longest side, at a JPEG quality of 82%. That is wider than a full HD screen (1920 pixels), so on most screens the photo can still fill the view at its own size. Balanced keeps up to 1800 pixels at 70%: fine for looking at a whole photo, a little less for zooming in on a scratch or a serial number.
For photos where one detail matters, such as damage on a car, take a close-up rather than relying on zooming into a wide shot. The pixel limit applies to the whole photo, so a close-up keeps far more detail of the thing that matters. Keep your original photos too: the person handling a claim may ask for them, and this tool never changes them.
When the result is much smaller than 5 MB
The tool keeps the first level that fits, and there is nothing between the levels. In our test, six photos would have come to about 5.6 MB at Best quality, just over the limit, so the tool went to Balanced and gave about 2.1 MB. If you would rather have the sharper version, leave out one photo, or send the photos as two PDFs if that is allowed: five photos fitted at Best quality.
Why the box says 4850
Sites count a megabyte in two ways: 1,024 × 1,024 bytes, or a round 1,000,000. Here 1 KB is 1,024 bytes, so 4850 KB is 4,966,400 bytes. That is under 5 MB whichever way the form counts (5,242,880 or 5,000,000 bytes), so the file is accepted either way.
Everything happens in your browser: your file is never uploaded to any server. You can check: once your file is open, turn on airplane mode — the tool still works.
Questions
How many photos fit in a 5 MB PDF?
In our tests, five detailed 12-megapixel photos fitted at Best quality and twelve at Balanced. Simpler photos, with sky or plain walls, take less room, so more of them fit.
How do I turn claim or report photos into one PDF under 5 MB?
Put them into one PDF with JPG to PDF, then open this page, choose that PDF and press Compress PDF with 4850 in the box. You can also make each photo smaller first with Compress image.
Can I email a 5 MB PDF?
Usually. Google says personal Gmail accounts take attachments up to 25 MB. Microsoft says Outlook’s limit is 20 MB for accounts such as Outlook.com, and 10 MB by default for Exchange work accounts. The Compress PDF for email page explains the details.
Will the words in my report get blurry?
No. Typed text is not a picture, so it is left exactly as it was. Only photos and scanned pages are made lighter.
Is my file uploaded?
No. Compress PDF to 5 MB runs in your browser on your own device. The file is never sent to our server or anyone else. Once your file is open you can even turn on airplane mode.
Is it free?
Yes. No sign-up, no limits on how many files, and no watermark is added to your file.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes, in any modern browser on iPhone, Android, Mac, Windows or Linux. Very large files work best on a computer, because a phone browser has less memory.