Three ways to control file size
Every image has two things that decide its file size: how many pixels it has and how hard it is compressed. This tool lets you control both.
- Quality. Lower quality removes detail the eye is least likely to notice. For photos, 75–85% is a common range for websites, and the difference from the original is hard to see at normal viewing size.
- Maximum width. A phone photo can be 4000 pixels wide, but a blog column might display it at 800. Limiting the width usually saves more than lowering the quality again and again.
- Target size. Many forms and email systems ask for “under 200 KB” or “under 1 MB”. Enter the number and the tool tests several quality levels to find the highest one that stays under it. If the target is impossible at the original dimensions, it shrinks the picture a little and tries again.
JPG or WebP output?
JPG works everywhere. WebP is usually smaller at similar visual quality and supports transparency, and all current major browsers can display it. If you are uploading to a service that only accepts JPG or PNG, choose JPG. The article on PNG vs JPG vs WebP explains the trade-offs in more depth.
Screenshots and logos behave differently
Photographs compress well as JPG or WebP because they contain smooth gradients. Screenshots, text and logos have sharp edges and flat colours, and lossy compression can leave visible fuzz around letters. For those, use a higher quality or keep the original as PNG. When a PNG has transparency and you choose JPG, transparent areas become white because JPG cannot store transparency.
A sensible workflow
First crop away what you do not need with the Image Cropper, then resize to the largest size the image will be displayed at, and compress last. Our guide to compressing images without losing quality walks through the whole process, and reducing image file size covers the common mistakes.
Privacy and limits
Compression happens on your device using your browser’s image encoder, so your files are never uploaded. On phones, very large images are scaled to a size the device can safely handle, and the tool tells you when that happens.