An iLovePDF alternative that never uploads your PDFs

What actually differs

Both do the same jobs. The difference is where the work happens, and everything else on this table follows from that.

iLovePDF figures are from its pricing and security pages as they read on 11 September 2026.

The compress cap is the one people run into. Two files per task is fine for a single report, and slow going for a folder of scanned invoices or a stack of certificates for an application, where you end up uploading, waiting and downloading in pairs. Here the whole folder goes in at once and comes back as one ZIP.

Why “where it runs” matters

For a restaurant menu, it barely matters. For a lot of what people actually compress, it is the whole question: an ID card scanned for a visa application, a signed contract, payslips for a mortgage, medical results, a client’s documents you were trusted with.

A two hour deletion window is a reasonable policy, and there is no reason to think iLovePDF does not keep to it. But it is still a copy of your document on a computer you do not control, for as long as the policy allows and under whatever the policy says. A tool that never receives the file does not need a policy about it.

You do not have to take that on trust here either:

1. Open your browser’s developer tools and switch to the Network tab.
2. Compress a PDF with the tool above.
3. Once the page and its code have loaded, no request carries your document anywhere.

Or switch off your connection after the page has loaded and compress something. It still works, which it could not if the file had to go anywhere.

Three ways to compress a PDF

“Compress PDF” means two quite different operations, and this tool keeps them separate so you know which one you are getting. A third option chooses between them for you when what you have is a size limit.

Keep text sharp rebuilds the file more efficiently and strips hidden metadata. Nothing is redrawn, so text stays selectable and quality is untouched. A badly made PDF can shrink a good deal; one that was already built well may barely change, and the tool tells you when that happens.

Shrink hard redraws every page as an image at the resolution you choose. This is what shrinks scans dramatically, because a scan is a picture of a page to begin with, usually stored at far more detail than a screen or an upload form needs. The trade is that text becomes part of the picture: it can no longer be selected, searched or copied. For a scanned document that was never selectable anyway, you lose nothing.

For a scan, start at 120 dpi. Drop to 96 dpi if you only need it readable on screen. Go up to 150 dpi if it will be printed.

To a size is the one to reach for when a form says “maximum 200 KB”. It leaves a file alone if it already fits, keeps the text if a lossless rebuild is enough, and otherwise redraws the pages at the sharpest resolution and quality that come in under the limit. It counts 1 KB as 1,000 bytes, the stricter of the two ways sites count, so the result fits either way. iLovePDF’s compressor offers three levels (extreme, recommended and less compression) rather than a target size, as its compress page read on 11 September 2026, so on a hard limit you would be trying levels until one fits.

The rest of the toolkit

The other everyday iLovePDF jobs are here too, working the same way:

• Merge PDFs in any order, with no 25 file cap.
• Split a PDF into ranges or single pages.
• Compress a large batch with a queue and a stop button.
• Turn photos and scans into a PDF, including iPhone HEIC photos, on A4, F4 or Letter.
• Turn PDF pages into JPG or PNG images.
• Convert a Word document to PDF.

When iLovePDF is the better choice

Being straight about this is more useful than pretending otherwise.

iLovePDF does more. It converts PDFs to Word, Excel and PowerPoint, runs OCR to make scans searchable, edits PDFs, and handles e-signatures. It connects to cloud storage, has desktop and mobile apps on its paid plans, and offers an API for automating PDF work from other software. None of that is here.

On a slow phone with a very large file, a server can also simply be faster than your device. And for an exported PDF full of photos, as the questions below explain, its compressor may get the file smaller than our lossless option does.

If what you need is compressing, merging, splitting or converting everyday documents, and especially if they are documents you would rather not hand to anyone, there is no reason for the file to leave your device.