How to compress a PDF on Mac
Preview can shrink a PDF with File › Export › Quartz Filter › Reduce File Size, but it has one fixed setting and often makes scanned pages blurry. FileMate adds Compress PDF to Finder’s right-click menu. It saves a smaller copy next to the original, keeps text, links and forms at its default level, and runs entirely on your Mac.
With FileMate, your PDF never leaves your computer.
Compress a PDF with FileMate
- Select the PDF in Finder. Select several to compress them all at once.
- Right-click it and choose FileMate › Compress PDF.
- FileMate saves Report compressed.pdf in the same folder. The original stays exactly as it was.
- Need it smaller still? Click Want a smaller file? in the result, pick Stronger or Maximum, and FileMate makes a new copy from the original.
The result shows the saving, for example “18.4 MB → 7.2 MB · 61% smaller”. If a PDF can’t get meaningfully smaller, FileMate says so instead of saving a copy that isn’t.
Compress a PDF with Preview
Preview, which comes with every Mac, has a built-in filter for this:
- Open the PDF in Preview.
- Choose File › Export.
- Open the Quartz Filter menu and choose Reduce File Size.
- Give the copy a new name and click Save.
For a one-off document that only needs to get somewhat smaller, that can be enough. The limits show up quickly:
- One fixed setting. Reduce File Size can’t be made gentler or stronger, so it either goes too far or not far enough.
- Scans and photos can become blurry. The filter downsamples images aggressively, and text in scanned pages often becomes hard to read.
- Sometimes the file gets bigger. On PDFs that were already compressed, the filter can produce a larger file.
- One file at a time, and you have to open, export, name and save each one.
FileMate’s three levels
FileMate starts at Safe by default and only goes further when you ask.
| Level | What it does | What it keeps |
|---|---|---|
| Safe | Reduces oversized images | Text, links, bookmarks and forms |
| Stronger | Also recompresses images as JPEG, with some quality loss | Text, links, bookmarks and forms |
| Maximum | Turns every page into an image | Only the look of the pages: text can no longer be selected or searched |
Safe and Stronger rewrite the PDF and then check the result against the original. If anything that matters was lost, such as pages, text, links or form fields, FileMate discards the copy. Maximum is the level for scans and image-heavy documents that simply have to fit a limit.
Why is a PDF large in the first place?
Almost always because of images: scanned pages, photos, or screenshots saved at a high resolution. Text and vector drawings take very little space. That’s why compression works best on image-heavy PDFs. A 40-page text report may already be as small as it can reasonably get, while a scan at 600 dpi usually has much more to remove.
Do I need to upload the PDF?
No. Online PDF compressors require the document to be uploaded before they can process it, and you download the result again afterwards. FileMate compresses the PDF on your Mac, so contracts, bank statements and medical records stay where they are.
Things FileMate leaves alone
Some PDFs can’t be rewritten without damaging them. FileMate never compresses signed or certified PDFs, or encrypted and password-protected ones: that would break the signature or bypass the protection. Tagged (accessible) PDFs, PDF/A archives and XFA forms are left unchanged at Safe and Stronger, because a rewrite would strip the structure that makes them what they are. Maximum can still turn their pages into images when you choose it.
Get FileMate
Right-click the PDF. Choose Compress PDF. The smaller copy appears next to the original, and the file never leaves your Mac.
Normal price €9.99, now €4.99 incl. VAT
One payment, no subscription. macOS 14 Sonoma or later, Apple silicon or Intel.