How to reduce PDF file size on Mac

There are many situations when you may need to compress a PDF file, from emailing a lengthy report to your colleagues to uploading a visa application to the government website. Besides, you may just want to save some space on your device.

In this guide, we will show you how to compress PDFs on your Mac using Preview.

Note: When compressed, the PDF may be of lower quality than the original.

1. Open a PDF document in the Preview app.

Preview is Apple's native image viewer app that's automatically included with Mac OS.

Open a Preview app from the Application folder in Finder

Go to Finder > Applications > Preview

2. To open a PDF document,

In Preview, Click on File in the menu bar and Open... in the drop-down menu. Select a file in the dialog box and click on Open.

Right-click on the PDF that you want to compress and choose Open With, choose Preview in the drop-down menu.

3. When you opened the desired PDF in Preview,

Click on File in the menu bar at the top of the screen and choose Export

A dialog box will open.

4. In the opened dialog box,

Click on the"Quartz Filter:" drop-down menu

Click on Reduce File Size.

Choose where you want to save your compressed PDF and click Save

After saving, please, don't forget to check the quality of the compressed document.

That's it. The new document will have a reduced size.

Last updated on Jan 30, 2023, by Andrei Zorin