Photos from a modern phone are huge. A single picture can be several megabytes, which is slow to send, quick to fill your storage and often too large for an upload form. The good news is that you can usually make a photo much smaller with no visible loss. This guide explains how.
Understand the two kinds of size
Pixel size is how many dots wide and tall the picture is, for example 4000 by 3000. File size is how much storage it takes, such as 4 MB. A bigger pixel size means a bigger file. Most screens show photos at far less than 4000 pixels wide, so the extra pixels are wasted when you only share or post the picture.
Method 1: Reduce the pixel size
This gives the biggest saving. Use the Image Resizer or the Largest side option in the Image Compressor. For sharing on chat apps and email, 1280 to 2000 pixels on the longer side is plenty. For small web images, 800 to 1200 pixels is usually enough. The picture still looks sharp on a phone or laptop screen.
Method 2: Lower the quality a little
JPG and WebP are lossy formats. They throw away detail the eye rarely notices. Small reductions in quality save a lot of space, but going too low creates blocky patches and blur around edges. Do it in small steps and look at the result at full size before saving.
Method 3: Choose a better format
- Use JPG for photos that must work everywhere.
- Use WebP for websites and modern phones. It is usually smaller than JPG.
- Convert photos saved as PNG to JPG or WebP, because PNG is very large for photographs.
- Keep PNG for logos, screenshots with text and images with transparency.
A simple routine
Resize to the size you actually need, compress with medium quality, compare the result with the original, and keep the original file somewhere safe. If a form has a limit, try a smaller size first rather than very low quality, because it keeps pictures looking cleaner.
The Image Compressor shows how much space you saved on each file, runs inside your browser and never uploads your pictures.
Free, no signup, and your files never leave your device.
Open Image Compressor