Email Attachments Made Easy: Shrinking PDFs for Sharing

Updated: Nov 2025 4 min read

Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo all share a common enemy: the 25MB attachment limit. If you are scanning documents or exporting high-quality reports, you hit this ceiling fast.

Why Are PDFs So Big?

PDFs are containers. They can hold text, fonts, vector graphics, and most importantly, high-resolution images. If you scan a 10-page contract at 600 DPI (dots per inch), that file can easily exceed 50MB.

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The Solution: Downsampling

When you compress a PDF for email, the primary technique used is "downsampling." This reduces the DPI of the images inside the PDF.
For printing, you need 300 DPI. For viewing a contract on a laptop screen, 72 DPI is perfectly legible. This single change can shrink a file size by 90%.

Security and Convenience

Instead of using file transfer services like WeTransfer (which require the recipient to click a link and download), compressing the file allows it to sit directly in the email inbox. This is more professional and less likely to be blocked by corporate firewalls.

Fix Your Attachment

Shrink your PDF to under 25MB instantly.

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Conclusion

Don't let file limits stall your workflow. A quick run through a compression tool ensures your documents are delivered on time, every time.