Reduce a spreadsheet’s file size in Numbers on Mac
If your spreadsheet includes image, audio or video files, you can reduce its file size to make it easier to send, post or share.
If you don’t want to permanently change your original spreadsheet, you can save a copy of it with a smaller file size instead.
Choose File > Reduce File Size (from the File menu at the top of the screen).
Select the adjustments you want to make:
Scale down large images: Images are scaled to the resolution used in the spreadsheet while preserving visual quality. For example, if you added a photo to your spreadsheet and resized it to be smaller, selecting this option removes the unused image data.
Note: Whether or not you select this tickbox, if an image is in a format that can’t be viewed on iPhone or iPad, it’s automatically converted to a format that can.
Remove trimmed parts of movies and audio: If you trimmed the start or end of movies or audio (using the controls in the Format sidebar), the trimmed portions are deleted.
Most compatible (H.264): Movies in your spreadsheet are converted to H.264 format, which plays on most Mac, iPhone or iPad devices.
High efficiency (HEVC): This format option appears only if you’re using macOS 10.13 or later and your Mac supports hardware HEVC encoding. Movies in HEVC format have the best quality at the smallest file size, but they can be played only on devices with iOS 11 or iPadOS 13, or later, and Mac computers with macOS 10.13 or later.
If you select this format, you can later add HEVC files to the reduced-size spreadsheet or copy. See this Apple Support article.
Note: H.264 and HEVC don’t support alpha channels, so transparency is converted to a black background.
Preserve original format: This option retains the current movie formats. In this case, any movies in formats incompatible with iOS or iPadOS aren’t optimised and therefore don’t play on iPhone or iPad.
Movie Quality: Set the maximum resolution for movies. Movies with a resolution smaller than the maximum aren’t scaled up.
Click one of the following buttons to apply the adjustments:
Reduce This File: Applies the settings to the original spreadsheet.
Reduce a Copy: Applies the settings to a copy of the spreadsheet and preserves the original spreadsheet. Enter a name for the copy of the spreadsheet and choose where to save the copy, then click Save.
Note: It’s possible to choose a combination of options that makes the file size larger.