TinyPDF

TinyPDF makes PDFs smaller. Drop in the 40 MB deck that will not send, the scanned contract, the brochure a colleague exported at print resolution, and get back the same document at a fraction of the size - pages in the same order, text still selectable, links and outline intact.

Nothing is uploaded. Every method runs on your Mac through Apple's own PDF frameworks, so a payslip or a signed contract never leaves the machine. Your originals are never touched: the smaller copy is written beside the file it came from, with a suffix you choose.

Highlights

1. Several methods, the smallest result - no single way of shrinking a PDF wins on every document, so TinyPDF tries more than one and keeps whichever came out smallest. You get the best of them without knowing any of them exist.
2. The text stays text - nothing is ever flattened into a picture, and there is no setting that changes that. Selecting, searching and copying still work in the smaller copy, and so do its links and its table of contents.
3. Never a bigger file - a PDF that is already as tight as it can be is left exactly as it is, and told to you in those words. No copy is written, so a folder never fills up with duplicates of the files nothing could improve.
4. A whole folder at once - drop in fifty PDFs and they are worked through several at a time, each row showing the size it started at, the size it landed on and how far along it is. Stop whenever you like; what has finished stays finished.
5. Every page still there - each result is re-opened and counted before it is allowed to replace anything. A document that came back a page short is thrown away rather than handed to you.
6. Three strengths - Smaller for something that only has to be read on a screen, Balanced for everyday sending, Best when the pages may still be printed.
7. Your originals, untouched - the smaller copy is a new file beside the old one, named with a suffix you pick. Nothing is ever written over.
8. Open With, from Finder - right-click any PDF and send it straight here, even when the app is not running.

How it works

Drop PDFs on the window, or pick them from Finder. Each one is read, then squeezed by every method that suits it, and the smallest result that still holds every page is written beside the original with your suffix - report.pdf becomes report-small.pdf. The row shows what it was, what it is now and the percentage you got back; the bar at the bottom adds it all up.

If nothing can make a document smaller, TinyPDF says so and writes nothing at all. That is a real answer, not a failure: some PDFs arrive already optimised, and the honest thing is to leave them alone rather than hand back a copy of the same file.

Perfect for

1. The attachment that bounced - the deck, the portfolio or the signed contract that is a few megabytes over what the mail server will take.
2. Scans from a phone or an office copier - pages photographed at full sensor resolution, where most of the file is detail nobody will ever look at.
3. Upload forms with a size limit - visa applications, tenders and school portals that refuse anything over a fixed number of megabytes.
4. A folder that has grown out of hand - a year of invoices or course notes, worked through in one drop.
5. Anything confidential - contracts, medical letters and payslips that should not be uploaded to a web converter to save a few megabytes.