Compress Image

Most people are compressing to get under a limit

The reason an image needs compressing is almost never aesthetic. A job application form takes 2 MB per attachment, a marketplace rejects anything over 5 MB, an email bounces at 25 MB. What you want is a file under that number, and a quality slider is a roundabout way of asking for it — you drag, export, check the size, and drag again.

Target size mode does that loop for you. Give it the limit and it encodes the picture repeatedly, narrowing in on the highest quality that still fits underneath. Seven passes are enough to land within half a percent of the best quality available, and every pass happens on your own machine, so there is no upload to wait for between attempts.

If the target cannot be reached, the tool says so and tells you the smallest size it managed. It does not quietly hand you a file that is over the limit and call it a success.

Quality mode, and what the three levels mean

Quality mode is the simpler choice when there is no hard limit — you just want the file lighter for a website or a document. Balanced is the setting to start with: for a photograph it typically removes most of the file size with no difference you would notice at normal viewing distance.

Strong goes further and is meant for thumbnails, chat attachments and anything that will be viewed small. Light stays close to the original and is the right pick for images you may print or crop into later, where discarded detail is gone for good.

Why a PNG barely shrinks

PNG stores every pixel exactly, and re-saving it just repeats that exact storage — there is nothing to discard, so the size hardly moves. That is not a limitation of this tool; it is what lossless means.

So a PNG is kept as a PNG unless you say otherwise. The alternative is on the page as a choice rather than a default, because converting to JPG flattens transparency to a solid white background, and a logo or a sticker that arrives with a white box behind it cannot be repaired. Losing a little size is an inconvenience; losing the transparent background is damage.

If the picture is a photograph that happens to be saved as PNG — a screenshot of one, say — converting to JPG is usually the right call, and the saving is large.

Compressing and resizing are different jobs

Compression keeps the picture the same width and height and spends fewer bytes describing it. Resizing throws away pixels, which is a much blunter instrument and by far the most effective one — halving the longest edge quarters the pixel count before compression even starts.

This page is for when the file size is the target. If it is the dimensions you actually care about — a 1200 px wide banner, a 800 px avatar — use the resize tool instead, where the size you type is the size you get.

The two do overlap, which is why the shrink option here exists but starts switched off. It is there for the case where quality alone cannot reach your target and you would otherwise be stuck.

How to compress an image

1. Drop your JPG, PNG or WebP files onto the box above, or click it to browse.
2. Choose Quality for a quick reduction, or Target size and type the limit you have to meet.
3. If the target is out of reach, switch on 'Shrink the image too' and set a longest edge.
4. Download each result, or take them all as one ZIP.

Usable on a work computer

Plenty of workplaces block file uploads to outside websites, to keep contracts and customer records from leaving the building. On those machines the usual online converters simply fail.

This one has no upload to block. Whether your organisation permits a particular site is still its own call, so check with your IT team if you handle regulated material.

Why this is built this way

Files that pass through someone else's server can be logged, cached, retained after the promised deletion window, or exposed in a breach. Contracts, ID scans, medical records and private photos are exactly the files people most often have to convert, and exactly the ones that should not be handed to a stranger's machine.

It is also why there is no file size limit, no daily quota, and no account. Those restrictions exist to control server costs. With no server in the loop, there is nothing to ration.

Questions about compressing images

Are my images uploaded anywhere?

No. The picture is decoded and re-encoded by your own browser, and no request leaves the page while it works. You can confirm it: open the browser's developer tools, switch to the Network tab, and process a file — the only requests are for this page's own script files, and none of them carry your image.

What happens if the target size cannot be reached?

The file is marked as failed rather than done, and the message tells you the smallest size that was actually achievable. That number is the useful part: if the floor is 900 KB and your limit is 500 KB, no quality setting will get you there and the next thing to try is shrinking the dimensions.

Why did my file come back the same size?

Because compressing it made it bigger, so the original was kept instead. This happens with images that are already optimised, and with small PNGs in particular. A compressor that hands back a larger file has broken its one promise, so it hands back the original and says so.

Will a transparent background survive?

Yes, as long as the format stays PNG or WebP, which is the default. Transparency only disappears if you choose to convert to JPG — JPEG has no transparency at all, so those areas are filled with white.

Does the photo keep its shot date and location?

No. The result is re-encoded from the pixels, so EXIF metadata — the shot date, camera model and GPS location — is not carried over. The rotation is applied to the pixels first, so the picture stays the right way up. If you need the shot date preserved, use the HEIC to JPG converter on this site instead: keeping EXIF is what that tool is for.

How many images can I do at once?

As many as your device has memory for. They are processed one after another so a large batch does not stall the page, and there is no per-file or per-day cap because nothing is being uploaded or metered.