“File exceeds the maximum attachment size.” Every office worker has met this error five minutes before a deadline. Most email providers cap attachments at 20–25 MB, and scanned PDFs blow past that easily. Here are the fixes, fastest first.
1. Compress the PDF
The Compress PDF tool with the slider at the balanced setting typically cuts scan-heavy files by 50–80% while keeping typed pages selectable. For extreme cases, strong mode flattens every page — see the full compression guide for the trade-offs.
2. Send only the pages that matter
Nobody reading your email needs all 90 pages. Extract the relevant pages into a small PDF — a 3-page extract is often under 1 MB.
3. Split into parts
When the recipient genuinely needs everything, split the PDF into two or three sequentially-named parts and send them across separate emails.
4. Go grayscale
Color scans carry three times the channel data of grayscale. If color adds nothing, converting to grayscale plus compression shrinks files dramatically — details in the grayscale guide.
5. Convert one page to an image
Sharing a single page for quick reference? A JPG of that page is usually the smallest possible payload and previews inline in most email clients.