Allergens, bad odors, viruses, mold, pollen—these are just a few of the nasty particles that are ever circulating the air you breathe. Pollen alone can cause a few runny noses, but you can significantly reduce those bad days with an air purifier.

It’s an ingenious piece of technology that sucks in air, then captures harmful airborne particles with one or more filters like HEPA and activated carbon. However, air purifiers come in different shapes and sizes, each with varying degrees of coverage.

Here are the best air purifiers for small spaces.

Our Favorite Air Purifiers for Small Spaces

Despite the size of the LEVOIT Core 300 Air Purifier, it packs a mighty punch in small spaces, whether in the corner of a bedroom or purifying the air in your living room.

In a 547 sq. ft. room, it only takes the LEVOIT Core 300 Air Purifier 30 minutes to efficiently and ruthlessly capture nasty particles in the air. Part of its performance is owed to Levoit’s VortexAir technology and 360 degrees of air intake. Best of all, the air purifier doesn’t exceed 24dB of noise, which is nothing more than a whisper, when you put it in Sleep Mode.

Of course, the LEVOIT Core 300 Air Purifier’s multiple filters are definitely the star of the show. Not only is there a pre-filter, and carbon filter, but a HEPA filter as well, meaning the device excels at capturing smoke, dust, mold, pollen, and pet dander.

The Toshiba CAF-Z45US boasts a powerful high performance, thanks to Toshiba’s Tornado Airmax System, which offers a 20 percent higher efficiency than traditional air purifiers. Using a 360-degree filter, it draws air from every direction, refreshing it up to five times per hour.

Effective in rooms up to 215 square feet, its HEPA true filter and pre-filter can lay waste to as much as 99.97 percent of microscopic allergens, including pollen, mold, spores, hair, and dust. It runs at a reasonably quiet 22 decibels and features a real-time air quality smart sensor, which uses one of four colored LED lights to show you how clean the air is, at a glance.

On top controls are easy to operate, and you’ll find four-speed settings, a six-hour timer, as well as auto and sleep modes. A simple push release button allows for easy removal of the filter for replacement, and a filter light will indicate when it’s time to change it over. There are no smart controls here. Just a simple and effective operation that works overtime to keep the air clean in your home.

Depending on the size of the room, even an air purifier designed for small rooms might be overkill if, say, you place them in an at-home office. You want something like the tiny, yet efficient Holmes Desktop HEPA Air Purifier.

Strapped with an air ionizer and HEPA filter, the Holmes Desktop HEPA Air Purifier is well-equipped to handle airborne particles as small as two microns, from pet dander to smoke. In a room no bigger than 109 sq. ft., you can keep those pesky allergy attacks and odors at bay.

What’s impressive is that the Holmes Desktop HEPA Air Purifier is just 14.6 x 7.2 x 11.3 inches in size, meaning it can fit comfortably on a nearby table or even on your desk if it’s big enough. More importantly, it never operates louder than a conversation between two people, so it won't disrupt your thinking or an afternoon nap at your desk.

The Germ Guardian AC4825E is a heavy-duty air purifier that’s uniquely equipped to battle germs and odor in addition to capturing nasty particles, making it just as useful in a living room as it would in your kitchen.

Crank up the Germ Guardian AC4825E to its highest setting—which there are three—and it can clean up mold spores, dust, pollen, pet dander, and allergens from the air of rooms as large as 743 square feet. The air purifier uses a pre-filter and true HEPA filter to do all the capturing, and when the filters have reached their end, there’s a handy filter replacement indicator to let you know.

What makes the Germ Guardian AC4825E Air Purifier particularly good in a kitchen is the use of an activated charcoal filter and UV-C light. The former is great at reducing odors from sources like cooking fumes and smoke, whereas the latter discourages bacterial growth.

Line up a series of air purifiers, side by side, and you’ll notice the same box shape or cylindrical style. The design works just fine but isn’t as space efficient when the air purifier is larger in size. The IQAir Atem, however, is a high-performance air purifier featuring a shape that saves precious space in your small home.

The IQAir Atem features a slim, disk-shaped design that’s exponentially easier to find a place for compared to a traditional air purifier. More importantly, the high-quality base it’s attached to keeps everything nice and stable.

What’s particularly impressive is the IQAir Atem’s performance, despite its compact size. Covering 300 square feet is great and all for small spaces, but you’ll love that the filtration system can capture particles as small as 0.003 microns, meaning the air purifier is more than capable of picking up COVID-19.

The Instant AP100 is a highly efficient air purifier featuring a 3-in-1 filtration system and a wonderful set of quality-of-life features. If you hate the idea of fiddling with another device but still want cleaner air to breathe, you'll love this air purifier.

The magic of the Instant AP100 comes from all the features it comes packaged with such as automatic night mode, an intelligent air quality sensor, eco-mode, and automatic fan speed. Just those features alone mean the air purifier adjusts itself accordingly—based on the air—without ever needing your input. When you turn out the lights, the air purifier will even dim the brightness of the interface automatically, so it won't bother you in your sleep.

With a combination of 360 degrees of air intake and a coverage area of 630 square feet, the Instant AP100 is particularly good in small spaces that feature an open floor plan.

The Honeywell HPA300 HEPA Air Purifier features four air cleaning levels, including a Turbo Clean one, and can purify the air in a 465-square-foot room 4.8 times in one hour. It is Energy Star certified too, so you know you’re getting an energy-efficient unit here.

HEPA filtration is especially effective at catching 99.97 percent of the usual pet dander, dust, pollen, and so on. But the Honeywell HPA300 is also a great air purifier for capturing smoke particles, making it a great choice for the wildfire season, too.

Easy-to-use touch controls plus a filter change indicator mean there’s no complicated setup here, and automatic shut-off timers for two, four, and eight hours add extra convenience too. Powerful air filtration that delivers in smaller rooms as well as large areas, the HPA300 is also effective at tackling household odors too.

The Blueair 411i Max Air Purifier can whip through a room up to 219 square feet in 12.5 minutes, or a 526 square foot room in 30 minutes. Thanks to HEPASilent's performance, it boasts up to 83 percent faster cleaning with 50 percent less noise. It also offers customizable features and voice control assistance via the Blueair app.

Featuring five different fan speeds (which includes a Night Mode setting), there is also an auto setting that will adjust the fan speed based on the air quality in the room. It removes up to 99.97 percent of airborne particles, including dust, pollen, pet dander, and cooking odors.

App controls provide remote control functions for your Blueair 411i Max, including a Welcome Home feature which places the unit on standby when you leave the home, and then switches it back on as you arrive back. The app provides accurate filter tracking, child lock modes, and more, for added convenience.

The Conway Airmega 200M True HEPA Air Purifier is designed to clean spaces of up to 361 square feet in approximately 12.5 minutes. Its combination of pre-filter, deodorization filter, and True HEPA filter can capture up to 99.99 percent of airborne particles, including pollen and other allergens.

A built-in air-quality indicator uses LED lights to notify you how clean the air is in real-time, and three-speed settings allow you to achieve the air quality that you’re looking for. An air filter indicator notifies you when it’s time for a change, and an eco-mode will automatically shut down the fan in situations where the air in the room has remained clean for more than 30 minutes.

There’s an Auto Mode that removes any guesswork on your part, optimizing the speed settings based on the detected air quality of the room, and timer functions will power down the fan after a set amount of time so that you’re not burning energy needlessly. Depending on speed settings, it will run anywhere between 24 to 53 decibels, so it is possible to have this unit running quietly, depending on how much of a workout you’re giving it.

Choosing the Right Air Purifier for You

A good rule of thumb when choosing the right kind of air purifier for you is to measure the size of the space that you want to use it in. Once you have the measurements, you'll have a good basis on which to conduct your search.

Most air purifiers list the square footage coverage in the product specifications, so finding one to cope with the size of the bedroom, living room, kitchen, or wherever shouldn't be an onerous task. Then, you'll want to consider what you want to use it for. Catching pollen? Dust? Mold? Pet hair? Again, check the specifications to make sure it covers the things that you want it to filter.

Lastly, you might want to consider things like the number of speed settings that it offers, whether it's energy-efficient, or runs quietly enough to be able to sleep next to. If it's being used for a smaller space, you should look for something quiet, that doesn't guzzle too much energy.

We thought that the Levoit Core 300 Air Purifier makes for a great overall choice. It's well-suited to smaller spaces, runs efficiently, and has a reasonable price point. It has a 360-degree intake and uses multiple filters to capture all those nasty airborne particles. Handy additional features such as a dedicated Sleep Mode are the icing on the cake with this very effective air purifier.