PDF too large to email: four ways to send it from a Mac
Your PDF bounces or will not attach. Send it with Mail Drop, share a link, shrink it without wrecking the text, or split it into parts. All from your Mac.
Every email service caps the size of attachments, and a scanned document passes that cap quickly. Four ways round it, easiest first.
1. Mail Drop
Apple Mail can send a large attachment as a download link through iCloud instead. When an attachment is too big, Mail offers Mail Drop when you send. The person you send it to gets a link.
2. Share a link
Put the PDF in iCloud Drive, Control click it in Finder, and choose Share to send a link. Gmail and Outlook offer the same with their own cloud storage.
3. Make it smaller
Shrinking the file is the only fix that keeps it a normal attachment. Preview can do it, at the cost of blurry text on scans. How to compress without the blur.
4. Split it
In Preview, show thumbnails, select a range of pages, and drag them to the desktop to make a new PDF from them. Send the parts in separate emails.
Questions
How do I email a PDF that is too large?
Use Mail Drop or a shared link to send it as a download, or compress it so it fits as a normal attachment.
How do I make a PDF smaller on a Mac?
Preview's File > Export with the Reduce File Size filter works but can blur text. Simply PDF shrinks pictures to the size they are shown at and leaves text sharp.