When someone says “my images are too big”, they may mean four different things: the file size in kilobytes, the pixel dimensions, the time to load on a phone, or the size of an upload limit. The seven steps below reduce all of them. We ordered them by how much they usually save, using measurements from our compression tests in Chrome.
1. Crop what you do not need
Removing empty margins, a table edge or an unwanted background gets rid of pixels entirely. A tighter crop also improves the picture. Use the Image Cropper first, before any other step.
2. Resize to the display size
This is the biggest saver for modern phone photos. A 4000×3000 pixel photo holds 12 million pixels, but a content column on a website may show it 800 pixels wide. In our test, scaling a sample photo to 50% of its width made the JPG about 72% smaller at the same quality setting. For a sharp result on high-density screens, aim for about twice the display width. Use the Image Resizer.
3. Lower the quality setting, but not too far
For a dusk photo with fine detail, our results were:
| Quality | Size |
|---|---|
| 100 | 194 KB |
| 90 | 50 KB |
| 80 | 31 KB |
| 60 | 20 KB |
The gap between 100 and 90 is enormous, while it is nearly invisible. The gap between 80 and 60 is smaller in bytes but the visible damage grows. Stay between 75 and 90 for most photos.
4. Choose a better format
WebP produced smaller files than JPG in every photo we tested: about 25% smaller for the dusk photo at quality 80. AVIF can be smaller still in some cases, but it is slower to encode and not available in every tool. Read image file formats explained to see where each format fits.
5. Use the right format for the content
Photos belong in JPG or WebP. Logos, icons, screenshots and anything with sharp text often belong in PNG, lossless WebP or SVG. In our synthetic screenshot test, a PNG was 23 KB with a dedicated optimizer, but the JPG at quality 80 was about 43 KB and showed speckles around the letters. See the visual comparison in PNG vs JPG vs WebP.
6. Remove metadata
Camera files carry EXIF data, and some contain embedded thumbnails or editing history. The size is usually small (tens of KB at most), so this is a minor saving for large photos, but it matters for tiny images and it protects your privacy. The Photo Metadata Remover deletes it without re-compressing JPG files.
7. Load images smartly on web pages
If you publish images on a site, file size is only half the story. Add width and height attributes, use loading="lazy" for images below the fold, and serve different sizes to different screens with srcset. Our article on responsive images in HTML explains how.
Which steps give the biggest saving?
- Phone photo for a blog: steps 2 and 3, optionally 4.
- Screenshot for documentation: step 5, then step 1 (crop).
- Product image for a shop: steps 2, 3 and 4, with consistent dimensions.
- Photo for a form with a size limit: see compressing a JPG to a specific size.
What not to do
- Do not rename a PNG file to .jpg. It does not change the format.
- Do not enlarge a small image “to improve quality”. It adds bytes, not detail.
- Do not repeatedly compress the same file. Go back to the original each time.
Try it: Image Compressor
Make photos smaller. Pick a quality or hit a target file size. Free, private, and it runs in your browser.
Open Image CompressorFrequently asked questions
What is the fastest way to reduce image size?
Resize it to the dimensions you actually need. For modern phone photos this alone often saves most of the file size.
What file size should a web image be?
There is no single number. As a rough goal, many content images can be kept well under 200 KB without visible problems, and hero images a bit larger. Measure on your own pages.
Is it better to resize or compress?
Resize first, then compress. They save different things and work best together.
Does removing EXIF data shrink an image?
A little. It is mainly a privacy step.
Which format is the smallest?
For photos, WebP and AVIF are typically smaller than JPG. For graphics with flat colours, lossless WebP or PNG may be smallest.