Compress Photos
Photographs from a phone or a camera are a different compression problem from web graphics: the files are huge because the sensors are, not because anything was stored wastefully. That is why this page talks about megapixels before it talks about sliders — a dimension you do not need costs more than any quality setting saves. The tool below handles up to ten photos at a time, entirely on your own device, and everything it strips or keeps is spelled out underneath.
What a photo weighs, by pixel count
| Source | Megapixels | Typical JPEG |
|---|---|---|
| Phone photo, 12 MP | 4032 x 3024 | 3 to 5 MB |
| Phone photo, 48 MP | 8064 x 6048 | 8 to 15 MB |
| 4K frame or screenshot | 3840 x 2160 | 0.5 to 3 MB |
| Full-frame camera, 24 MP | 6000 x 4000 | 6 to 12 MB |
Kilobytes follow megapixels
The table shows typical starting weights, and the pattern is blunt: file size tracks pixel count. A 48-megapixel shot opens around ten megabytes not because the phone encoded it badly — it did not — but because 48 million pixel positions have to be described. The quality setting only decides how many bytes each pixel's worth of detail receives; the pixel count is the multiplier, and it dwarfs everything else on this page.
So decide where a photo is going before deciding how hard to squeeze it. A screen can only show its own resolution — on a 1080p display, everything beyond roughly two megapixels is discarded by the monitor itself. Scale the photo to its destination first, then compress: the two steps together routinely turn a ten-megabyte capture into a few hundred kilobytes with nothing a viewer could point at as missing.
Sensible sizes for email and messaging
Email still lives under hard caps — Gmail rejects messages over 25 MB, other providers sit at or below that — and two or three camera originals can fill one on their own. Photos scaled to about 2,000 pixels on the long side and compressed near quality 80 typically weigh a few hundred kilobytes each, which fits a whole album into a single message and still looks sharp on whatever screen opens it.
Messaging apps are the opposite trap: they re-compress for you, aggressively and without asking, which is why photos arrive blurrier than they left. Most chat apps skip that pipeline when an image is attached as a file or document rather than as a photo. Compressing here first puts the trade-off back in your hands — you pick the size and the quality, then send the result as a file so no server touches it again.
HEIC and the other formats phones produce
iPhones have saved captures as HEIC by default since 2017 — a container built on the HEVC video codec, adopted to roughly halve photo storage — and it is the one common photo format this compressor cannot read. The decoders here cover JPG and PNG, plus WebP, AVIF and GIF; HEIC sits behind patent licensing that mainstream browsers have declined to touch. The fix costs seconds: run the file through this site's HEIC to JPG converter, which is equally on-device, and drop the result straight in here.
Android phones and standalone cameras write JPEG by default, so their photos need no preparation. Camera RAW files are the other special case — they are sensor readings rather than finished images, no browser can open them, and they should be developed in a photo application before anything on this site touches the result.
Batches, metadata, and the copy you keep
A batch is ten photos and 50 MB, repeatable indefinitely, with a single ZIP holding the results. There is no quota to exhaust because your own processor does the work — which also means an aging laptop takes proportionally longer, and closing a few heavy tabs genuinely speeds it up.
Every photo leaves this tool stripped of its metadata: camera body, lens, exposure settings, capture time and — on most phones — the GPS fix recording exactly where you stood are all absent from the output, while the image itself stays correctly rotated. Before posting a picture taken at home, that removal matters as much as the size. Before archiving a trip, it is exactly what you do not want: publish the compressed copy, and keep the untouched original somewhere safe.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is my phone photo 8 MB when similar ones online are 500 KB?
Resolution. The online copy was scaled to display size somewhere along the way; yours still carries every sensor pixel. Resize a photo to what a screen can actually show and the two files converge — that, plus a sensible quality setting, is the entire trick.
What settings should I use to email photos?
Scale the long edge to roughly 2,000 pixels, compress at 80, and stop worrying: the combination stays sharp on laptops and phones alike and slips a dozen photos under every provider's attachment cap.
Can I compress iPhone HEIC photos here?
Not directly — HEIC is not among the formats this tool decodes. Convert it with the HEIC to JPG tool on this site first; both steps run on your device, and the pair still takes only seconds per photo.
Does compressing remove the location from my photos?
Yes. The GPS coordinates a phone embeds, along with every other metadata field, are absent from the output file. For pictures of your home, your children or your daily routine, that removal is arguably worth more than the smaller file.
How many photos can I process in one go?
Ten per batch and 50 MB combined, as many batches as you like. A holiday's worth of shots is a few rounds, each ending in a ZIP download.
Why do photos look worse after WhatsApp sends them?
The app re-encodes every image sent as a photo to protect its own bandwidth, and offers you no quality control over that. Sending the picture as a document attachment bypasses the re-encode — compress it here first and the version you controlled is also small enough to send fast.
Will compressing reduce a photo's megapixels?
No. This tool changes the encoding, never the dimensions: a 12-megapixel photo stays 12 megapixels. Shedding pixels is the resize tool's job, done before compression — and for screen-bound photos it is usually the step that matters more.
Can I run this on my phone directly?
Yes — open the page in the phone's browser and everything works the same way, with no app and no upload. Speed depends on the phone's processor, so give a big batch a moment, and plug in if the battery is low.