Files never leave your device.How it works
How to compress a PDF to 100 KB
- 1Drop your PDF above (or click to select).
- 2Click Compress — we search for the highest quality that stays under 100 KB.
- 3Download the result, or see the smallest we could reach if 100 KB isn't possible.
Frequently asked questions
- What if 100 KB isn't achievable?
- We tell you honestly and give you the smallest version we could produce without corrupting the file — never a broken result.
- Will the text stay readable?
- Yes. Pages with real text keep it selectable — only images are re-encoded. Scanned pages are re-encoded at a lower resolution.
- Do my files get uploaded?
- No — everything runs in your browser. Your PDF never leaves your device.
When 100 KB is the hard ceiling
A 100 KB cap is common on the strictest portals: government and visa applications, university exam registrations, and older upload forms. These systems reject anything larger outright, so “close enough” doesn't help. This tool searches for the highest quality that still fits under 100 KB and stops there.
What realistically fits
100 KB is tight. Text-based PDFs and short documents usually make it comfortably. A one- or two-page scan often can too, at a lower resolution. A long, image-heavy scan may not fit without becoming unreadable — and rather than hand you a useless file, HivePDF tells you the smallest size it could reach honestly. If that happens, try splitting the document or scanning in black-and-white at a lower resolution first.
Preparing a file before you compress it
The starting point matters as much as the compression itself. A document scanned in colour at a high resolution has far more data to remove than one scanned in black-and-white at a modest resolution, so if your scanner lets you choose, pick grayscale and a lower resolution before you even upload. Trimming wide margins with Crop PDF helps too, since a smaller page has less image area to encode in the first place. For a colour photo ID or certificate, converting it to greyscale first with PDF to Grayscale can be the difference between fitting under 100 KB and not.
Multi-page documents
A single scanned page has a real chance at 100 KB. A five- or ten-page scanned booklet almost never will, because the limit applies to the whole file, not per page. In that case, splitting the document and uploading pages separately — if the form allows more than one file — usually works better than forcing everything into one.