Compress Images

Make images smaller without making them look worse

Large images are the single most common reason a web page loads slowly, an e-mail bounces or an online form refuses your upload. A photo straight from a modern phone is often 3–8 MB and 4000 pixels wide, while most websites, forms and chat apps only need a fraction of that. Fileopia's image compressor shrinks JPG, PNG, WebP and AVIF files – usually by 50–90% – while keeping them visually identical at normal viewing size.

You stay in control of the trade-off. Pick a quality level and let the compressor do the rest, or tell it the exact size you need – 20 KB, 50 KB, 100 KB, 200 KB, 500 KB, 1 MB or any custom number – and it searches for the highest quality that fits under that limit. Drop one image or a hundred; batches come back as a single ZIP with a before-and-after table so you can see exactly how much each file saved.

Unlike most online compressors, nothing is uploaded. The work happens inside your browser, so it is as fast as your device, has no daily limit and is safe for passport scans, medical photos, contracts photographed on a phone and anything else you would rather not hand to a stranger's server.

What you can do here that most compressors don't offer

• Compress to an exact file size. Government portals, job sites, exam registration forms and visa applications often say 'photo under 50 KB' or 'signature under 20 KB'. Choose the target and the tool finds the best quality that fits; if quality alone cannot get there, it gently reduces the pixel dimensions until it does.
• Quality slider for full control. 80–90 is visually lossless for photos, 60–75 is the sweet spot for websites, 40–55 is fine for thumbnails and previews.
• Convert while you compress. Save as WebP or AVIF for 25–50% smaller files than JPG at the same quality, or keep the original format.
• Resize in the same step. Set a maximum width (for example 1920 px for a website hero image or 1080 px for social media) and the image is scaled down before compression – the biggest saving of all for phone photos.
• Strip metadata. EXIF data such as GPS location, camera serial number and editing history is removed by default. That protects your privacy and shaves extra kilobytes.
• Batch with a report. Compress many images at once and get a table with the original size, new size and percentage saved for each file, plus one ZIP download.
• Never bigger than the original. If an image is already optimised and cannot be made smaller in the same format, you get the original back instead of a larger file.
• Works offline and has no caps. No 5 MB per-file limit, no 20-image limit, no account and no watermark.

How to compress an image

• Drop your JPG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, HEIC, GIF or BMP files onto the page, or press Ctrl+V to paste a screenshot from the clipboard.
• Choose a quality level, or pick a target file size such as 50 KB or 100 KB.
• Optionally choose an output format (keep original, JPG, WebP, PNG or AVIF) and a maximum width.
• Click Compress. Single images download directly; several images come back in one ZIP with a size report.

How image compression works

Digital photos contain far more information than the human eye can detect at normal viewing size. Compression exploits this in two ways.

Lossy compression (JPG, WebP, AVIF) discards fine detail that you are unlikely to notice: subtle colour variation inside smooth areas like skies and skin, and high-frequency texture that is lost anyway when an image is viewed on a phone screen. JPG divides the image into 8×8 pixel blocks, converts each block into frequencies and rounds off the less important ones; the quality setting controls how aggressive that rounding is. WebP and AVIF use more modern prediction techniques borrowed from video codecs, so they reach the same visual quality with considerably fewer bytes.

Lossless compression (PNG) keeps every pixel exactly. The file gets smaller only by describing the same pixels more efficiently. To make PNGs dramatically smaller, Fileopia uses colour quantisation: it reduces the image to an optimised palette of up to 256 colours, chosen to represent the original as closely as possible, and then stores it losslessly. For logos, icons, charts, screenshots and illustrations this typically cuts the size by 60–80% with no visible change, and transparency is preserved.

Resizing has the largest effect of all. Halving the width and height of an image removes three quarters of its pixels, so a 4000-pixel phone photo scaled to 1600 pixels is already around 85% smaller before any compression is applied.

Which format should you choose?

If you are not sure, keep the original format – it opens everywhere the original did. If the image is for your own website, WebP is supported by every current browser and is usually the best balance between size and compatibility. AVIF gives the smallest files but encoding is slower and a few older apps cannot open it yet.

Photos saved as PNG are a common mistake: a camera photo stored as PNG can be five to ten times larger than the same photo as a high-quality JPG. Converting such files to JPG or WebP while compressing is often the single biggest saving available.

Recommended settings for common jobs

These are starting points. Look at the result at the size it will actually be shown – a web page or a phone screen – rather than zoomed in to 400%, where every compressed image shows some artefacts.

Compressing images to a specific KB size

Many official forms specify a maximum file size for photos and signatures. Indian exam and recruitment portals, passport and visa systems, university applications and bank KYC forms commonly ask for something like 'photo 20–50 KB, signature 10–20 KB, JPG only'. Hitting those numbers by trial and error in a photo editor is tedious.

Choose the target from the list (or 'Custom' and type the number) and the compressor runs a binary search on the quality setting: it encodes the image, checks the size, and narrows down until it finds the highest quality that is still under your limit. If even low quality is too large – a big 12-megapixel photo cannot fit into 20 KB at full size – it reduces the pixel dimensions step by step until it fits. PNG images are saved as WebP or JPG in this mode because lossless PNG cannot be squeezed to a fixed size.

If the form also specifies exact pixel dimensions (for example 200×230 px), first use Resize Image with the right preset or size, then compress the result to the KB target – or use the 'Max file size' box in the resize tool to do both at once.

Why compress images for your website?

Images usually make up the largest share of a page's weight. Smaller images mean faster loading, which improves user experience, conversions and search visibility – Google uses page experience signals such as Largest Contentful Paint, and the largest element on most pages is an image. Lighter pages also cost less to serve and are kinder to visitors on slow mobile data.

• Serve images no wider than the largest size they are displayed at – a 1200 px wide content column never needs a 4000 px image.
• Prefer WebP or AVIF for photos; keep PNG or SVG for logos and icons.
• Use quality 65–75 for most web photos; the difference from 90 is rarely visible on screen.
• Strip metadata – browsers do not need camera details, and GPS data can reveal where a photo was taken.
• Lazy-load images below the fold so they only download when the visitor scrolls.

Compressing a gallery of product photos from 3 MB each to around 150 KB each can turn a page that takes ten seconds on a phone into one that appears almost instantly.

Will compression reduce quality?

At sensible settings, not visibly. Quality 75–85 JPG or WebP is indistinguishable from the original for most people when viewed at normal size. Artefacts become noticeable at very low quality – blockiness in smooth gradients, halos around sharp edges and smeared fine texture. If you see them, raise the quality or allow a slightly larger target size.

Re-compressing an already compressed JPG again and again does slowly degrade it, because each pass discards a little more detail. Always start from the best original you have, and keep that original safe. Screenshots and graphics with sharp text compress best as PNG palette images or high-quality WebP; JPG tends to blur text edges.

Metadata, orientation and colour

Photos from phones store their orientation in EXIF data rather than rotating the pixels. The compressor applies that orientation before saving, so the result is the right way up even after the metadata is removed. GPS coordinates, camera model, lens details and timestamps are discarded when 'Remove metadata' is on, which is the default; untick it if you need to keep them.

Images are converted to the standard sRGB colour space used by the web. Transparent areas are preserved in PNG, WebP and AVIF output; when saving to JPG, which cannot store transparency, transparent areas are filled with white.

Supported formats and limits

Input: JPG/JPEG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, GIF (first frame), BMP, TIFF, ICO, SVG and HEIC/HEIF photos from iPhones. Output: JPG, PNG, WebP or AVIF. There is no fixed file-size or file-count limit; the practical limit is your device's memory. A typical laptop handles batches of hundreds of photos and individual images up to about 100 megapixels. Very large batches are processed one image at a time, so your browser stays responsive.

Privacy: your images never leave your device

Every step happens inside your browser tab. The image is decoded, edited and re-encoded on your own device using the browser's built-in image engine and WebAssembly, and the result is handed straight to your downloads folder. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is stored on a server and there is no queue, so private photos, ID cards, screenshots with personal data and unreleased product shots never leave your computer or phone. You can even switch off Wi‑Fi once the page has loaded and the tool keeps working.

Many popular online compressors upload your files to their servers and keep them for a period before deletion – TinyPNG, for example, states that it retains uploads for up to 48 hours. With Fileopia there is simply nothing to retain.

Compressing images for online shops and marketplaces

Marketplaces such as Amazon, Etsy, eBay, Flipkart and Shopify stores all recommend large, sharp product photos – often 1600–2500 pixels on the long side so customers can zoom – but they also reward fast pages. The best approach is to export each product photo once at the recommended dimensions, then compress at quality 80–85. The zoomed view stays crisp, and the file usually drops from several megabytes to 200–400 KB. For your own store, also create WebP copies at 800–1200 px for category pages and thumbnails, where nobody zooms and every kilobyte counts.

Keep backgrounds clean and evenly lit: plain white or light grey backgrounds compress far better than textured tables or fabric, and they look more professional. If you need a pure white background, Remove Background can replace it before you compress.

Screen versus print

Compression settings for screens and for print are different. Screens show roughly 100–200 pixels per inch at normal viewing distance, so web images can be modest in size and use moderate quality. Printers need around 300 pixels per inch at the final print size: an A4 photo print needs roughly 2480×3508 pixels. For print, keep the full resolution, use quality 90 or higher and stay with JPG, which every print shop accepts. Never print from an image that was compressed to a small KB target for a web form – the lost detail cannot be recovered.

If you only have a small image and need a larger print, Upscale Image can enlarge it with sharpening, which is better than letting the printer stretch it.

Compressing GIFs and animations

This tool saves the first frame of an animated GIF as a still image. To keep the animation, use Compress GIF, which reduces colours and frame size while preserving motion, or convert short clips to MP4 or WebP video for files that are often ten times smaller than the GIF.

Compressing on phones and tablets

The compressor works in Safari on iPhone and iPad and in Chrome on Android. Tap the drop area to pick photos from your gallery – iPhone HEIC photos are converted automatically – and the compressed images are saved to your downloads or Files app. Because processing happens on the phone, large batches may take a little longer on older devices, but nothing uses your mobile data for uploads.

Related tools for image workflows

• Resize Image – change dimensions by pixels, percent, cm or inches, with social media and passport presets.
• Image Converter – convert between JPG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, GIF, TIFF, ICO and SVG.
• HEIC to JPG – convert iPhone photos for Windows, the web and forms.
• Crop Image – cut away unwanted edges before compressing for an even smaller file.
• Compress PDF – the same idea for PDF documents full of scanned pages.

Tips for the smallest possible files

• Crop first. Removing empty borders reduces both pixels and bytes.
• Resize before compressing – it is the biggest single saving.
• Choose WebP or AVIF if the destination accepts it.
• Simplify the image: a busy, noisy background compresses far worse than a clean one.
• For screenshots, keep PNG – text stays crisp and palette compression is very efficient.
• Check the before/after table and recompress outliers with a lower quality or a target size.