Under 1 MB, with nothing you’d notice
For most documents, 1 MB is generous. In our tests every file fit with room to spare:
| Document | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| One page, phone photo | 1.9 MB | 641 KB |
| One page, 300 DPI scan | 1.1 MB | 614 KB |
| Three pages, phone photos | 5.6 MB | 792 KB |
| Five pages, colour scan | 2.8 MB | 842 KB |
| Four-page Word report with photos | 1.3 MB | 935 KB |
Each took about a second on a laptop, and less than that for one page.
Why a one-page file stops at about 600 KB
You might expect a one-page scan to come out at 990 KB if the limit is 1 MB. It doesn’t, on purpose. We stop at about 220 DPI. Above that, the difference is hard to see on a screen or in an office print, so the extra bytes would mostly make the upload slower. A file that’s smaller than it needs to be, at no visible cost, is the better result.
How many pages fit in 1 MB
For pages that are scans or phone photos, use these rough numbers:
- about 10 pages at around 100 DPI, where text is clear and easy to read;
- about 5 or 6 pages at around 150 DPI, which also prints well;
- up to about 30 pages at the readable minimum, rough but legible.
PDFs typed in Word or exported from a website hold far more, since their text costs almost nothing. Their photos are what count.
Common places with a 1 MB limit
You’ll find a 1 MB cap per document on many visa, university, loan and insurance portals. Some count 1 MB as 1,048,576 bytes and some as 1,000,000. We use the smaller number so the file passes both.
Bigger than that
A long scanned document, like a 40-page property file or six months of bank statements scanned in colour, may not fit under 1 MB and still be readable. You have two good options:
- Split PDF by size into parts under 1 MB, if the form takes more than one file;
- send only what’s needed. Extract PDF pages saves just the pages you pick as a new PDF.
If you have no limit to meet and want the file smaller anyway, the main Compress PDF page with Balanced is the quickest way.
Checked against the tool on 22 October 2026. How we write and test these guides