Claude PDF Upload Limit: 30 MB in Projects, 1000 Pages

In short: a PDF you add to a Claude project can be up to 30 MB, and one you attach to a chat up to 500 MB. Either way a PDF can have at most 1,000 pages. If yours is over, shrink it with Compress PDF or cut it into parts with Split PDF, both in your browser.

The limits below come from Claude's help page on uploading files. The project limit is the one people usually hit, since it is much lower than the chat limit.

Claude's upload limits for PDFs

The limits in Anthropic's own words

Each limit above, as the help page writes it, with a link to the page.

• Project files File size: 30MB per file
  Anthropic: Upload files to Claude
• Number of files: Unlimited, but total content must fit within Claude's context window
  Anthropic: Upload files to Claude
• Chat uploads File size: 500MB per file Number of files: Up to 20 files per chat
  Anthropic: Upload files to Claude
• Number of pages: PDFs are limited to 1000 pages
  Anthropic: Upload files to Claude
• You can't upload PDFs over 1000 pages. If you try, you'll see an "Uploaded file is too large" error.
  Anthropic: Upload files to Claude

• Claude analyzes both text and visual elements (like images, charts, and graphics) in PDFs of 100 pages or fewer. For PDFs from 101 to 1000 pages, Claude processes text only and doesn't analyze visual elements.
  Anthropic: Upload files to Claude
• Content type: Text extraction only (except for multimodal PDFs)
  Anthropic: Upload files to Claude

How to get a PDF under 30 MB

1. Check the file size. On Windows, right-click the file and choose Properties; on a Mac, choose Get Info. Under 30 MB? Add it as it is.
2. Over 30 MB, and the PDF is a scan or full of photos? Open Compress PDF, keep Smaller, tick Target max PDF size and type 29,000 KB. That leaves a little room under 30 MB.
3. Typed text with some images, where Claude needs the words? Pick Keep text instead. It re-saves the file without changing the pages, so the text stays selectable, but it usually saves little.
4. Click Compress PDF, check the new size and download the file.
5. Still over? Cut it into parts with Split PDF. Choose Every N pages and type a page count that gives parts under 30 MB, then add the parts to the project one by one.

Smaller turns each page into a picture. A scanned PDF has no text to lose, but a PDF that was typed does, and Anthropic says project files are read as extracted text, so use Keep text for those.

How to get a PDF under 1,000 pages

Shrinking does not remove pages, so a PDF over 1,000 pages has to be split, whatever its size. Anthropic gives the same advice for any large file:

• If you're working with larger files, consider dividing them into smaller sections to stay within limits.
  Anthropic: Upload files to Claude

1. Open Split PDF and drop the PDF. The page count shows once you pick Split by ranges.
2. Type one range per part, such as 1-500 and 501-. Each range becomes its own PDF.
3. Click Split PDF. Several files download as one ZIP. Upload the parts to the same chat or project.

Checked against Anthropic's page on uploading files to Claude on 25 October 2026. Limits change, so read the page before you upload something large.