Compress a PDF that's too large to e-file

Why courts cap the file size

Court e-filing systems accept millions of documents, store them for years, and serve them to judges, clerks, and opposing counsel over ordinary internet connections. A per-document size cap keeps the system responsive and storage manageable. When your upload crosses that line, the portal refuses it outright rather than accepting a file it can't reliably store or display.

The frustrating part is that the cap is about bytes, not pages. A crisp 40-page brief typed in a word processor might be under a megabyte. A 40-page contract you scanned at your local library could be 60 megabytes for the exact same content. The court only sees the number, so the second one bounces.

The actual size limits, system by system

There is no single national limit — each system, and often each individual court, sets its own. These are the figures published by the systems themselves. Always confirm the cap for your specific court before you file, because districts change them.

Federal courts (CM/ECF via PACER) set the limit per district, and the range is wide. The Central District of California caps individual PDFs at 35 MB; the Western District of Washington allows up to 100 MB per document. PACER's own guidance says plainly that "each court sets a limit," so check your district's CM/ECF page rather than assuming a number.

Florida's statewide ePortal caps a single trial-court submission at 50 MB in aggregate (200 MB for the Supreme Court and District Courts of Appeal). New York's NYSCEF allows up to 100 MB per PDF document. For Texas eFileTexas, keep documents small — the portal's guidance is to stay well under the envelope limit, so split large exhibits rather than pushing a single oversized file.

Filing with USCIS online is stricter: each uploaded file must be no larger than 12 MB, in PDF, JPG, or JPEG format, and must not be encrypted or password-protected. Some individual forms set an even lower per-file cap for evidence uploads, so read the instructions for the form you're filing.

Why scanned documents balloon in size

When you scan a page or photograph it with your phone, the result isn't text — it's a picture of a page. Every speck of the paper, every shadow, every off-white pixel gets stored. Scan in color at a high resolution and a single page can be several megabytes on its own. Multiply that across a long exhibit and you're far past any court's limit.

Born-digital PDFs — the ones exported straight from a word processor — are tiny by comparison because they store the actual letters, not a photo of them. That's why the same document can be enormous when scanned and featherweight when printed to PDF. docu's compression targets exactly this: it re-encodes the heavy scanned images down to a filing-appropriate size while keeping the pages readable.

How docu compresses your PDF

Everything below runs inside your browser. Your file's bytes never travel to a server. When it's done, docu re-checks the result so you're not guessing whether it will clear the gate.

1. 1Open docu and drop in the PDF the court rejected. It reads the file locally — with your Wi-Fi off if you want to watch it stay put.
2. 2docu measures the current file size and flags what's making it heavy, usually oversized scanned images.
3. 3Choose to compress. docu re-encodes the images and rebuilds the document at a smaller size while keeping the pages legible and searchable.
4. 4Check the new file size against your court's cap. If you tell docu which court you're filing in, it confirms the file is under that system's limit.
5. 5Download the compressed PDF along with a compliance certificate that records what was changed, then upload it to the portal.

When compression isn't enough: split the document

Occasionally a filing is so large — hundreds of pages of color exhibits — that even good compression can't get it under a tight cap. When that happens, the standard move is to split it into parts and file them as separate documents or volumes, for example "Exhibits, Volume 1 of 3."

Most courts explicitly allow this and some require it above a certain length; the rules for your court will tell you how to label and order the parts. Compress first, since a well-compressed file often fits in one piece and saves you the extra filing steps. Split only if it still won't fit.

Doing it yourself, honestly

You have other options, and it's worth knowing them. Desktop Adobe Acrobat has a "Reduce File Size" command, but it's a paid subscription. Re-scanning the original in black-and-white at a lower resolution shrinks the file dramatically if you still have the paper and time to redo it. Many free online compressors exist too — but nearly all of them work by uploading your document to their servers, which is a poor fit for a court filing full of personal information.

docu's difference is simply that the compression happens on your machine and nowhere else. There's no account required to diagnose the problem, your first repaired file each month is free, and the document never leaves your device. It handles the mechanical formatting; it doesn't give legal advice.