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Initializing Secure Environment…
Reduce a PDF to 2MB or smaller — free, with no sign-up and no file upload. 2MB is the most common cap on job-application portals and applicant-tracking systems (ATS), and a designed CV with a photo or graphics often pushes just over it. Medium compression brings it back under 2MB while keeping the text perfectly crisp so both recruiters and automated screening systems read it cleanly. Everything runs locally in your browser.
To compress a PDF to 2MB, Medium compression is usually enough. On ihatepdf, upload your PDF, choose Medium (or Heavy if it is image-heavy), and download a file under 2MB — free, with no sign-up and no upload. 2MB is the typical cap on job portals and applicant-tracking systems, and it leaves plenty of room for a clean, readable CV.
A modern CV is rarely plain text — it has a profile photo, a designed template, icons, or an embedded font, and any of those can push the file past a portal's 2MB limit. Rather than redesigning or re-exporting from Word, compressing the finished PDF is the fastest fix. Because your CV carries your name, contact details and history, compressing it locally keeps that personal data off third-party servers.
Use Medium compression first — it optimizes the photo and any graphics while leaving the text layer untouched, so the document stays sharp on screen and fully readable by applicant-tracking systems. Only step up to Heavy if the file is unusually image-heavy. Avoid flattening your CV to an image (some tools do this) because it destroys the selectable text that ATS software depends on; this tool always preserves it.
Upload your CV PDF and choose Medium compression. A one- or two-page CV with a photo or design typically drops well under 2MB on Medium, with the text staying perfectly sharp for both human recruiters and ATS parsing.
No. Applicant-tracking systems read the text layer, which is vector data and is never touched by compression. Only images are optimized, so your CV stays fully machine-readable after compressing to 2MB.
Job portals, recruitment sites and ATS platforms cap CV uploads (commonly at 2MB, sometimes 1MB or 5MB) to keep storage manageable. A designed template or an embedded photo frequently pushes a CV just over 2MB — Medium compression fixes it in one pass.
Yes — and more private than most tools. Your CV is compressed inside your browser and never uploaded to any server, so all your personal details stay on your device.
No. Compression runs entirely in your browser using WebAssembly. Your document never leaves your device.
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