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Compress PDF to 1 MB

1 MB is the usual limit for supporting documents on passport and customs portals, and a sensible size for email. It holds about a dozen black-and-white pages or a handful of colour scans at good quality. No upload in browser modeNo sign-upNo daily limit

1) PDF file

Drop a PDF here, or click to choose

2) Target size

Unit

Preset to 1 MB. Change it if your form says otherwise. 1 KB = 1,000 bytes here, so the file also passes sites that count 1,024.

3) Where to compress

In your browser recommended On our server

Black & white (smaller, good for text scans)

⚠️ Output is an image-based PDF (text is not selectable). Other sizes: 100 KB · 200 KB · 300 KB · 500 KB · any size

What fits in 1 MB

1 MB is roughly 1,000 KB to spread over the pages. In our tests three colour pages kept 169 dpi, six pages about 98 dpi and ten pages about 103 dpi at JPG quality 50. India's customs procedure gives a matching rule of thumb: at 75 KB per black-and-white page, “the maximum permissible file-size is 1 MB … would allow the submitter to upload a supporting document which is up to 13 pages long” (e-SANCHIT procedure).

Pages	Test file	Result	Resolution reached	Readability
1	ID-style scan, 1.0 MB	851 KB	200 dpi · q80	sharp, prints well
2	photo pages, 1.4 MB	812 KB	200 dpi · q72	sharp, prints well
3	colour text scan, 2.5 MB	969 KB	169 dpi · q72	sharp, prints well
6	grey text scan, 6.1 MB	883 KB	98 dpi · q80	normal text readable
10	mixed scan, 5.0 MB	968 KB	103 dpi · q50	clear on screen

Measured on 16 October 2026 with this tool in browser mode on our own test PDFs (synthetic A4 scans with paper noise, which is harder to compress than a clean office scan). Your numbers will differ; cleaner scans get higher resolution. “q” is the JPG quality the tool settled on. Readability labels are a rough guide: 100 dpi and up is clear on screen, 70–100 dpi keeps normal-size text readable, below 50 dpi only large text survives.

Where you will see a 1 MB limit

Passport Seva at Indian Embassies and Consulates. The applicant-portal SOP says: maximum size allowed 1 MB, the total of all uploaded documents not more than 1 MB, PDF format (SOP for document uploading, Embassy of India, Brussels). Note the total: three documents must share 1 MB.
ICEGATE e-SANCHIT (Indian customs). Maximum 1 MB per file, scanned at not less than 200 dpi in black and white, about 75 KB per A4 page (step-by-step procedure).

If it won’t go below 1 MB, try this

Watch for total limits.When a portal caps the total (like Passport Seva abroad), divide: three documents means about 330 KB each. Use the target-size tool at 330 KB.
Split long files.e-SANCHIT says to split documents over 1 MB into two or more files. Split PDF by page range.
Text PDFs with big images.Try high-quality compression first; it keeps text selectable.
For email, aim lower.1 MB attaches anywhere, but a phone on a weak connection will thank you for 500 KB.

Questions

Is 1 MB here 1,000 KB or 1,024 KB?

We aim for under 1,000,000 bytes, so the file passes portals that count either way.

How many pages fit in 1 MB?

About 13 black-and-white pages at the e-SANCHIT standard, or 6–10 mixed scans at around 100 dpi in our tests.

My file is 1.2 MB of text. Should I use this?

Probably not — rasterising text makes it bigger per page. Use high-quality compression, which keeps the text.

Does anything get uploaded?

Not in browser mode, which is the default. Server mode sends the file to our server, processes it in memory and does not keep it.

Compress PDF to 1 MB

What fits in 1 MB

Where you will see a 1 MB limit

If it won’t go below 1 MB, try this

Questions

Compress to another size

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