---
title: "How to compress a PDF to under 1 MB"
description: "Shrink a PDF to fit an upload limit on your phone, and see the new file size before you save it."
canonical: "https://spirikle.com/blog/compress-a-pdf-to-under-1mb/"
last-updated: "2026-08-25"
---

# How to compress a PDF to under 1 MB

Upload forms tend to cap attachments at 1 MB or 2 MB, and a multi-page scan sails past that. Open the document in Scan Clan, choose Compress, and pick a level — the new size is shown before you commit, so you are not guessing and re-doing it.

By Abhishek Chauhan · 25 August 2026 · 1 min read · [How-to guides](/blog/category/how-to-guides/)

## Step by step

### 1. Open the document menu

On the document you want to shrink, and choose Compress.

### 2. Pick a level

The estimated size for each is shown alongside it.

### 3. Check the number before saving

This is the part that saves the repeat attempt: you can see whether you have cleared the limit while you can still change your mind.

### 4. Save or share

The compressed copy is what you send.

## If it is still too big

Split the document and send the pages that are actually needed. Most forms asking for "proof of address" want one page, not the eleven-page statement it came in.

Re-scan with a lower capture resolution. Capture resolution is a setting, and dropping it makes every page smaller from the start — which beats compressing a needlessly large photo afterwards.

Use Black and White for text pages. A page of text carries no information in its colour, and a one-bit page compresses far harder than a colour photograph of the same sheet.

## Why scans get so large

A scanned page is a photograph, not text. A PDF produced by a word processor stores letters as instructions and weighs almost nothing; a scan stores several million pixels per page. That is why ten scanned pages can outweigh a hundred typed ones, and why compression has something to work with in the first place.

See also: [how to scan a document to PDF on Android](/blog/scan-documents-to-pdf-on-android/).

**About the author: Abhishek Chauhan.** Founder of Spirikle and the maker of Scan Clan, a free document scanner app.

## Continue reading

- [How to sign a PDF on your phone](https://spirikle.com/blog/sign-a-pdf-on-your-phone/) — You do not need to print, sign and re-scan. Open the PDF in Scan Clan, add your signature, and send it back. You can draw the signature on the screen, or photograph one you wrote on paper and Scan Clan will lift it off the page.
- [How to scan a document to PDF on Android](https://spirikle.com/blog/scan-documents-to-pdf-on-android/) — Open Scan Clan, point the camera at the page, and let it find the edges. It straightens the photo, evens out the lighting, and gives you a PDF you can send. The whole thing takes about fifteen seconds per page.
- [How to scan a document without a watermark](https://spirikle.com/blog/scan-a-document-without-a-watermark/) — Scan Clan does not stamp anything on your scans. There is no watermark to remove and no upgrade that takes it off, because there is no paid tier here for it to belong to. If you want a watermark — "COPY", "DRAFT", your own name — you can add one deliberately.

> **Scan Clan** is our free document scanner app for Android: it turns paper into clean, straight PDFs with your camera, and can sign, compress and share them — no ads and no subscription. [Get it on Google Play](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spirikle.scanclan). For quick jobs on a computer, try the [free PDF and image tools](/tools/).

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_Scan Clan · https://spirikle.com/blog/compress-a-pdf-to-under-1mb/ · published by Spirikle · support@spirikle.com_