Compress a file

Make a photograph, a graphic or a PDF smaller without sending it anywhere. Every format below is compressed by your own browser, so the file never leaves your device — and if it cannot be made meaningfully smaller, you get the original back rather than a file that grew.

Up to 100 files at once. Mixed formats are fine.

Compress by file type

Compress to a specific size

An upload form with a hard limit is the usual reason to want this. These pages encode at several qualities and keep the highest one that fits underneath — and say so plainly when the number cannot be reached without wrecking the picture.

What compressing can and cannot do

For a photograph, most of the size is detail your eye was never resolving, and discarding it is close to free — half to four fifths of a JPEG usually goes without anything becoming visible. For a logo, a screenshot or a diagram stored as PNG, nothing is discarded at all: the file is re-encoded losslessly, and the saving is whatever a better encoder can find, typically ten to thirty per cent.

What no compressor can do is rescue a photograph stored in the wrong format. A PNG photograph is often ten times the size of the same picture as a JPEG or a WebP, and no amount of lossless optimisation closes that gap — converting does, in one step. The compression pages say so where it applies rather than selling you the tool you happen to be standing in front of.

The other thing worth knowing: reducing the dimensions almost always saves more than reducing the quality. A photograph 4000 pixels wide that will be looked at in a 800-pixel column is carrying four fifths of its bytes for nothing, and every page here offers a resize control alongside the quality one for that reason.

Which format you compress into matters as much as how hard you compress it. AVIF and JPEG XL both reach the same visual quality as a JPEG in substantially fewer bytes, because both encoders are two decades newer; AVIF is now supported by every current browser, which makes it the safe modern default for anything going onto a web page. If the file has to be opened by arbitrary software rather than a browser, JPEG remains the format that everything can read, and that compatibility is worth the extra bytes.

A PDF is the exception to most of the above, because it is a container rather than a picture. It can hold text as instructions, diagrams as vector paths and photographs as embedded images, and those three shrink in entirely different ways — which is why thePDF page asks which job you want rather than offering one slider. The default re-encodes the photographs and leaves the text selectable; rasterising produces a much smaller file and turns the text into a picture permanently, so it is offered last and labelled with what it costs.

One thing compressing is not is removing what the file knows about you. A photograph carries the coordinates it was taken at and the camera that took it, and whether those survive a compression depends on the format — so if that is the goal, the metadata remover is the tool that does it deliberately, shows you what was there, and confirms what it took out.

Questions about compressing images

How much smaller will my image get?

For a photograph, usually between half and four fifths smaller with nothing visible lost — most of a JPEG is detail your eye was not resolving. For a logo, a screenshot or a diagram stored as PNG the answer is much lower, typically ten to thirty per cent, because nothing is discarded at all and the saving is only what a better encoder can find. An image that has already been optimised may not shrink at all, and you will be told that rather than handed a file that grew.

Does compressing lose quality?

For JPEG, WebP, AVIF and JPEG XL, yes by design — that is what the quality slider controls, and at the default of 75 the difference is very hard to see at normal viewing size. For PNG it is lossless: every pixel survives exactly, and the file gets smaller only because the encoder tried harder. The two are genuinely different operations and this page does not pretend otherwise.

Can I compress an image to an exact file size?

To a size at or under a limit, yes, which is what an upload form with a cap actually requires. Pick the target and the compressor encodes at several qualities, narrowing in on the highest one that still fits underneath. If your number cannot be reached without wrecking the picture it says so instead of quietly handing you something unusable.

Should I compress or convert my image?

If the format is already right for the content, compress. If it is not, converting will save far more in one step: a photograph stored as PNG is often ten times the size of the same picture as a JPEG or WebP, and no amount of lossless optimisation closes that gap. The pages here say so where it applies rather than selling you the tool you happen to be standing in front of.

Is resizing better than lowering the quality?

Usually, and it is the most overlooked setting on this page. A photograph 4000 pixels wide that will be viewed in an 800-pixel column is carrying about four fifths of its bytes for nothing, and dropping the dimensions costs you nothing visible at the size it will actually be seen. Every page here offers a width limit alongside the quality control for that reason.

Are my images uploaded anywhere?

No. Every compression on this site runs in your browser — the image is decoded, re-encoded and handed back without leaving your device. You can verify it by watching the network tab in your browser's developer tools, or by disconnecting from the internet and compressing anyway.

Can I compress several images at once?

Not yet. Batch handling currently covers conversion — drop a folder of files, pick one target format and take a single ZIP back — but compression is still one file at a time, because a quality setting that suits one photograph rarely suits the next. A shared batch setting is on the list.

Does compressing remove EXIF and location data?

Do not rely on it. Compressing a JPEG or WebP re-encodes it from pixels, which as a side effect leaves the original EXIF behind — but PNG optimisation works on the existing file and can preserve its metadata chunks. If removing the data is what you actually want, use the metadata remover, which is built for it, tells you what was in the file, and confirms what it took out.

Is there a size limit, and does it cost anything?

Up to 100 MB per file, and no cost. Because nothing is uploaded there is no server capacity to ration, so there is no daily cap, no queue and no account. A batch stops at 100 files, and on a phone a very large image will run the tab out of memory well before either figure is what stops you.

Which formats can be compressed here?

PDF, JPEG, PNG, WebP, AVIF and JPEG XL. PDF works differently from the rest and has three modes, because a document can be mostly text, mostly photographs or a scan, and those shrink in completely different ways. Among the image formats, AVIF and JPEG XL are the two worth knowing about if you control what your visitors receive — both routinely beat JPEG substantially at the same visual quality, with AVIF supported by every current browser.