How to compress images
- Set your options in the bar above the drop area: quality, maximum width and output format.
- Drop your images, or click to choose them. Pick several to process a batch.
- Download the result: a single image, or a ZIP if you added more than one.
Processing starts as soon as you add files, using your browser’s own image engine, so it’s fast and needs no upload.
The three settings that matter
| Setting | What it does | Suggestion |
|---|---|---|
| Quality | How hard the image is compressed (JPG and WebP) | 72% default; 80% for printing; 55% for thumbnails |
| Max width | Scales down wider images, keeping proportions | 1920 px for websites; 1280 px for email; Original to keep size |
| Format | Keep the same format, or convert to JPG or WebP | WebP is smallest for the web; JPG is the most compatible |
Resizing is the biggest lever. A 4000-pixel-wide phone photo has four times as many pixels as a 2000-pixel one. If the image will be viewed on a screen, reducing the width to 1920 or 1280 pixels often saves more than any quality setting, with no visible difference.
JPG, PNG or WebP?
- JPG: best for photos; supported everywhere. No transparency.
- WebP: typically 25–35% smaller than JPG at similar quality; supported by all modern browsers and most apps. Great for websites.
- PNG: best for screenshots, logos and graphics with sharp edges or transparency. We shrink PNGs with an optimized colour palette, which keeps transparency. For photos, WebP or JPG is still much smaller; the tool tells you how much.
If you choose JPG for an image with transparent areas, they’re filled with white.
Never bigger than the original
Some images are already compressed about as far as they can go. Re-encoding them can produce a file larger than the one you started with, which is the opposite of what you asked for. When that happens here, we keep your original file and tell you, rather than handing you a bigger “compressed” version.
Privacy
Your photos are decoded, resized and re-encoded entirely inside your browser. They’re never uploaded, and the re-encoded files don’t carry EXIF metadata, so GPS coordinates and camera serial numbers are stripped as a side benefit. That’s useful when sharing photos of your home, your children or documents.
Need to put photos into a document instead? Use JPG to PDF. Converting formats without compressing? Try WebP to JPG.
Typical sizes to aim for
| Where the image is going | Suggested settings | Typical result |
|---|---|---|
| Email attachment | 1280 px, 70% JPG | 150–300 KB per photo |
| Website hero image | 1920 px, 75% WebP | 150–350 KB |
| Blog or product thumbnail | 800 px, 65% WebP | 30–80 KB |
| Upload form with a 100 KB limit | 1280 px, 55% JPG | usually under 100 KB |
| Printing at home | Original width, 85% JPG | close to the original |
These are starting points. Every photo is different, so check the size shown after compressing and adjust the slider if you need to go smaller.
Frequently asked questions
How much smaller will my photos get?
Phone and camera photos usually shrink by 60–90% at the default 72% quality, and even more if you also reduce the width. Images that are already well compressed shrink less; if our result would be bigger, we keep your original.
What quality setting should I use?
70–80% is visually almost identical to the original for photos. 50–60% is fine for web thumbnails and email. Below 40% you'll start to see blocky artefacts.
How do you compress PNG files?
PNGs are reduced to an optimized palette of up to 256 colours with smooth dithering, the same technique popular PNG shrinkers use. That typically saves 50–80% while keeping transparency. Lower quality uses fewer colours. Images that already have few colours, like logos, are stored losslessly.
Can I compress many images at once?
Yes. Select or drop several images together. They're processed one after another on your device and you download them all as a single ZIP file.
Is location data removed?
Yes. Re-encoding drops EXIF metadata, including GPS location and camera details, so the compressed photo doesn't reveal where it was taken.