Compress the IFC. Keep the model.
Three presets and a dozen surgical tools that cut an IFC down to something you can email, upload, or open on a laptop. Typically 30–70% smaller with the geometry intact — more if you let it collapse shapes. Free, in the browser, and savable as a pipeline for the next revision.
The model is 480 MB. The portal accepts 100. The deadline was an hour ago.
- Typical saving: 30–70% with geometry kept
- Maximum: ~90% with box collapse
- Presets: Light · Medium · Aggressive
- Your original: Untouched — output is a new file
Start here — Reduce IFC File Size
One button, three answers. Reduce IFC File Size is the whole bucket in one run. Light keeps every property set and every shape and still wins on most files, because most files are heavier than they need to be. Medium drops the psets nobody downstream reads. Aggressive replaces detailed shapes with their bounding boxes — the right trade only when the recipient needs volumes, not detail.
- Light: geometry and data intact, typically 30–50%
- Medium: unused psets stripped, shapes preserved
- Aggressive: shapes collapsed to boxes, up to ~90%
What this set does
Weight, then detail
The presets attack the cheap wins first — duplicated representations, unreachable entities, psets nothing references — before they touch a single shape.
Or do it by hand
Deep Purge, Simplify Mesh, Strip Materials, Clean Drawing Layers, Strip Xrefs. Pick the one thing making your file heavy instead of accepting a preset's opinion.
Repeatable
The same consultant will send the same heavy model next month. Save the chain as a pipeline and the next revision takes one click.
Tools in this category
- Reduce IFC File Size — One-click IFC file shrink with three preset strengths — Light keeps your data, Medium strips data but keeps every 3D shape, Aggressive also simplifies geometry (mesh decimation + bounding boxes).
- Deep Clean IFC Model — Find and remove hidden leftovers that bloat your file — unused geometry, orphaned relationships, and data nothing else references.
- Simplify IFC Geometry — Replace detailed 3D shapes with bounding boxes by default.
- Keep Only Physical IFC Elements — Keep walls, floors, columns, rebar, and MEP — remove spaces, zones, annotations, grids, proxies, and other non-physical objects.
- Remove IFC Materials & Colours — Strip the material and colour information from every element — keep the shapes, drop the paint.
- Clean IFC Drawing Layers — Remove 2D helper lines (centrelines, footprints, construction marks) that aren't needed for 3D viewing.
- Delete IFC Elements — Pick entire categories of elements (doors, windows, rebar…) or specific items and remove them from the model.
- Delete IFC Properties — Strip the metadata attached to your elements — remove whole property groups or expand a group to delete just the individual parameters you pick.
- Fix Broken IFC External Links — Remove references to external files that your model no longer needs — gets rid of the 'missing file' popups when someone else opens your IFC.
- Anonymize IFC — Scrub authors, organizations, contacts and file provenance so the model is safe to share.
How it works
- Drop it in. Upload the IFC, or pick one you already have in the workspace.
- Pick a preset. Light unless you know you need more. The result tells you what came off.
- Download. A new IFC, in seconds. The original is still sitting where it was.
When you'd use it
The portal that says no
A 480 MB federated model, a client upload form with a 100 MB ceiling, and no appetite for splitting it into four files by hand.
The share link on a phone
You want the site team to open the model on a phone over 4G, which means it has to load in seconds, not minutes.
The tool that chokes
A downstream application that theoretically reads IFC and practically gives up somewhere past 200 MB.
Where it stops
- Aggressive trades detail for size — collapsed shapes do not come back. Use it when the recipient needs volumes and positions, not geometry.
- Optimising an IFC4.3 file writes IFC4 out. If you must keep 4.3 metadata, stay on read-only tools.
- Numbers vary by model. A file that is heavy because it genuinely contains 900,000 elements will not lose 70%.
FAQ
How much smaller will my file get?
The Light and Medium presets preserve your geometry and typically save 30–70%. The Aggressive preset trades detail for size by collapsing shapes into bounding boxes and can reach 90–95%. Real numbers depend on how heavy the geometry, how many psets, and whether you have unreachable entities.
Will I lose data?
Light keeps every property set and the original geometry. Medium strips unused psets but preserves shapes. Aggressive trades visual fidelity for size by collapsing detailed shapes into bounding boxes — pick it only when downstream consumers don't need the detail.
Can I rerun the same optimisation on every file?
Yes. Save the chain as a pipeline in the Automate tab, then drop any new IFC and rerun the same steps with one click.
Does optimisation work on IFC4.3 files?
The optimiser accepts IFC4.3 input, but what it writes back is IFC4 — the downgrade is unavoidable in the current writer. If the IFC4.3 metadata has to survive, stick to read-only steps such as Health Check.