DEV Community: videocompress

Lighthouse Said My Hero Images Were Too Heavy. I Compressed the Phone JPGs in the Browser and Re-Measured

videocompress — Sat, 24 Oct 2026 02:12:33 +0000

Five real phone photos (35.0 MB) → 7.9 MB on pixsip.com/compress-jpg. DevTools Network transfer size and load timing on a local test page, before and after. No upload, no target-KB slider.

I build PixSip, so I'll say that up front. The numbers below are from a fresh headless run on the live page, not a marketing slide.

The inventory (Network → Img first)

Skip the compressor for a minute. Open the page that feels slow, DevTools → Network, filter Img, disable cache, hard-reload.

On a local test gallery that dropped five full-size phone JPGs into one hero strip, the panel looked like this:

File	Camera	Pixels	Bytes
metro-invalidovna.jpg	Pixel 8 Pro	8160×6144	8.6 MB
ayup-market.jpg	Samsung SM-A336B	4000×3000	7.5 MB
sturgeons-mill.jpg	iPhone 15 Pro Max	4032×3024	6.5 MB
mudbank-adur.jpg	Pixel 8 Pro	8160×6144	6.9 MB
ad-column.jpg	Pixel 4a	4032×3024	5.4 MB
Total			35.0 MB

Lighthouse's "Improve image delivery" opportunity is pointing at the same files. You don't need every JPG on the site — only the ones that dominate transfer size. Compress those, leave the rest alone.

Same five files on a local page, emulated ~10 Mbps, cache off:

Img requests: 5
Transfer size: 35.0 MB
Largest: 8.6 MB
Load event: 28.1 s

That's the baseline. Everything after this is "make those five smaller without leaving the browser."

1. Open /compress-jpg and wait for the lock

Go to pixsip.com/compress-jpg. The drop zone starts disabled while the worker (MozJPEG wasm) loads — usually about a second. Wait until the small 🔒 appears under "Drop images here" and the file input is enabled. Dropping too early hangs the job.

Free plan: up to 20 images × 10 MB each, up to 3 output formats at once. There is no target-KB setting and no quality slider — MozJPEG runs at one calibrated quality. Don't expect "compress to exactly 200 KB."

2. Drop the batch, read the results table

I dropped the five originals as JPG → JPG. Worker ready in ~1.0 s; the batch finished in ~11 s. Nothing over a few KB left the machine (clarity.ms analytics pings only — no image upload).

File	Before	After	Δ
metro-invalidovna.jpg	8.6 MB	2.0 MB	−76%
ayup-market.jpg	7.5 MB	963 KB	−87%
sturgeons-mill.jpg	6.5 MB	1.7 MB	−74%
mudbank-adur.jpg	6.9 MB	1.6 MB	−76%
ad-column.jpg	5.4 MB	1.5 MB	−71%
Total	35.0 MB	7.9 MB	−77%

Card text on the page: "Saved 27.1 MB total · 77% smaller."

3. Verify pixels, EXIF, GPS

Download the ZIP and check what actually changed. Dimensions must stay the same — PixSip does not resize. EXIF and GPS should be gone (four of the five originals carried GPS; none of the outputs do).

Summary from the real ZIP:

Pixel sizes changed: 0 of 5
GPS left: 0 of 5
EXIF tags left: none

That last point matters for WordPress: if you upload the phone original, WordPress keeps a publicly reachable copy of it (and often its GPS) even after it builds -scaled thumbnails. Strip first, then upload.

4. Compare at 1:1, then your own 100% crop

Hit Compare on any row, then Zoom 1:1. Drag the divider across fine detail — tiles, foliage, sign lettering — not a downscaled preview.

And a 100% crop from the real files (metro platform tiles + tactile paving), original on the left, PixSip on the right:

At this distance the difference is hard to spot. If a crop looks soft, that photo may need a lighter pass elsewhere — or simply a smaller display size in CSS, not a quality slider PixSip doesn't have.

5. Swap the files and re-weigh

Replace the five <img> sources with the compressed JPGs. Same local page, same emulated ~10 Mbps, cache still off:

Metric	Before	After
Transfer size	35.0 MB	7.9 MB
Largest image	8.6 MB	2.0 MB
Load event (~10 Mbps)	28.1 s	6.4 s

That's the Lighthouse/Network loop closed: inventory → compress the offenders → re-measure. LCP on a real WordPress theme will still depend on font/CSS/JS, but the image bytes are no longer the obvious bottleneck.

Short checklist

Network → Img (or Lighthouse → Improve image delivery) — list the heaviest JPGs only.
Open /compress-jpg, wait for the 🔒.
Drop the batch. Read the results table; download the ZIP.
Confirm dimensions unchanged and EXIF/GPS gone before you upload to WordPress.
Compare + Zoom 1:1 (and a 100% crop of your own) on at least one hero image.
Swap files, re-weigh transfer size. Repeat for the next heavy set if needed.

Free plan caps at 20 × 10 MB; bigger batches are on pricing. For how MozJPEG lands vs other compressors, see the PixSip benchmark. Nothing is uploaded — details in privacy by default.

If the heavy asset is a video hero instead of a photo strip, I also build vidsmaller.com for target-size cloud compression.

Photo credits (CC0)

All five samples are CC0 on Wikimedia Commons:

Invalidovna Metro Station — AVDLCZ, Pixel 8 Pro
Ay-Up Market, Nottingham - 29 March 2025 — Aethonatic, Samsung SM-A336B
Sturgeon's Mill - August 2025 - Sarah Stierch 31 — Missvain, iPhone 15 Pro Max
Mudbank in the River Adur 2026-05-05 — Andy Li, Pixel 8 Pro
Advertising column with torn up posters 2 — Profpcde, Pixel 4a

Your .webm or .mov keeps getting rejected — convert it to a smaller MP4 in the browser

videocompress — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 02:35:56 +0000

A screen recording lands as .webm. An iPhone clip lands as .mov. Both play fine on your machine — then Slack, an email form, a Windows laptop, or a CMS says the file type isn't supported, or the upload is simply too big.

The fix that usually works is boring and universal: turn the file into an MP4 with H.264 video and AAC audio, and shrink it while you're at it. That is what most uploaders and players actually expect.

I ran two real clips through videocompress.dev in Chrome — nothing uploaded off the machine — and measured the downloads with ffprobe afterwards.

Source	Container / codecs	Size (tool)	Target	Output	Reduction	Encode time
Tears of Steel clip → WebM	WebM · VP8 + Vorbis · 1920×800 · 1:15	91.4 MB	15 MB	13.9 MB MP4 H.264+AAC	85% smaller	~4 min 19 s
Same clip → MOV	MOV · H.264 + AAC · 1920×800 · 1:15	113.1 MB	20 MB	15.0 MB MP4 H.264+AAC	87% smaller	~13 s

Both outputs stayed 1920×800. The footage is a 75-second cut of Tears of Steel (Blender Foundation open movie), re-encoded with ffmpeg into a VP8/Vorbis .webm and an iPhone-style H.264/AAC .mov so the demo matches the formats people actually send around.

Why .webm and .mov trip up uploads

They fail for different reasons:

WebM (often VP8/VP9 + Opus/Vorbis) is great in Chrome and for browser screen recordings, but plenty of desktop apps, email gateways, and older players still want MP4.
MOV is Apple's QuickTime container. iPhones write H.264 or HEVC into it. Many Windows tools and web forms accept the codecs but reject the .mov extension — or they accept MOV but choke on the size.

If you only need a container swap and the video is already H.264+AAC, the dedicated MOV to MP4 page can rewrap without re-encoding. When the file is also too large, or the codec isn't MP4-friendly (VP8/VP9 WebM, ProRes, PCM audio), you want the compressor on the homepage: it re-encodes to H.264+AAC and can aim at a megabyte budget. Background on that path: video compressor with no upload and WebCodecs vs ffmpeg.wasm.

1. Open the compressor and drop the file

Go to videocompress.dev. The drop zone accepts MP4, MOV, WebM, MKV, AVI, WMV, FLV and more. No account, no watermark.

Drop the .webm or .mov (or click Choose file). When it is ready you should see the filename, size, resolution, and duration, plus Quality / Target size controls and a Compress video button. The file stays in the tab — the lock line under the controls is literal.

Here is the WebM after load — 91.4 MB · 1920×800 · 1:15:

And the MOV — 113.1 MB · 1920×800 · 1:15:

2. Switch to Target size (skip the quality presets for a hard cap)

Quality mode (High / Balanced / Small file) is fine when you only care about “smaller.” When Slack, Discord, email, or a form has a hard megabyte limit, click Target size instead and type the budget in MB.

For the WebM I set 15. The estimate under the button read ≈ 14.1 MB before I pressed Compress:

For the MOV I set 20 (estimate ≈ 18.8 MB):

Leave Advanced settings → Resolution on Original unless the encode is starving and you truly need more headroom — dropping resolution on a clip that already fits the target just throws pixels away. More on picking a number: compress video to a target size. Screen recordings with UI text are the hard case; see compress a screen recording if that is your source.

3. Compress the WebM → MP4

Press Compress video. Keep the tab in the foreground; browsers may pause the encode if you switch away.

On this machine the VP8 WebM took about 4 minutes 19 seconds. The result card:

91.4 MB → 13.9 MB · 85% smaller

ffprobe on the download:

Container: MP4
Video: H.264 1920×800 ~1.4 Mbps
Audio: AAC stereo 44.1 kHz
Duration: still ~75 s
Bytes: 14,552,715 (13.9 MB as the tool reports)

So the awkward WebM is now a normal MP4 under a 15 MB cap.

4. Compress the MOV the same way

Same page, Change video, drop the .mov, Target size → 20, Compress video.

This one finished in about 13 seconds (H.264 source + WebCodecs path is much faster than decoding VP8 in the tab):

113.1 MB → 15.0 MB · 87% smaller

ffprobe again: H.264 + AAC, 1920×800, ~75 s, 15,713,740 bytes. Same codecs the tool always aims for — which is why compress MOV files and a plain “make it MP4 and smaller” goal are the same button once you need a size cap.

5. Download and spot-check

Click Download compressed video. Quick checks before you re-upload anywhere:

Extension is .mp4.
Size is under your destination limit (for Discord free uploads that means ≤ 20 MB; server boosts raise it — see compress MP4 for Discord).
It plays on a second device or in a private window.
If it is still over the limit, lower the target a few MB and run again — or drop resolution one step in Advanced only if the picture is already soft.

Bitrate vs resolution tradeoffs are covered in the video compression guide.

If the file is so large the tab runs out of memory, use vidsmaller.com (cloud exact-size compressor from the same maker) instead of forcing the browser job.

Checklist

[ ] Source is WebM, MOV, or another browser-decodable file
[ ] Opened videocompress.dev and saw the file listed locally
[ ] Chose Target size with a real destination budget
[ ] Downloaded an MP4 that ffprobe (or any media info tool) shows as H.264 + AAC
[ ] Confirmed the byte size against the place you are sending it

Two formats in, one boring MP4 out — and in these runs, 85–87% smaller without the file ever leaving the browser.

Fit a tall photo into a WhatsApp or LinkedIn circle without losing your head

videocompress — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 02:09:07 +0000

Most good photos of a person are tall. Phones shoot 3:4, photographers like 2:3, and a half-body shot with crossed arms almost never comes out square. Then you set it as your WhatsApp DP or LinkedIn photo, and the app hands you a fixed circle to drag around. Either the top of your hair goes or your arms do.

I wanted to see exactly what gets lost and whether padding the photo first is worth it, so I ran one real portrait through the whole thing and checked the result in a circle before uploading anywhere.

What the app actually does with your photo

Profile pictures are stored as squares and displayed as circles. SquareImage's Full DP Maker page lists the stored sizes it designs for: 640 × 640 on WhatsApp, 512 × 512 on Telegram, 320 × 320 on Instagram and Facebook. LinkedIn shows your photo as a circle as well. Whatever you send gets downscaled, so a 6,000-pixel upload buys you nothing except a slower upload.

That gives you two separate losses:

The square crop. A 2:3 photo forced into 1:1 loses a third of its height. On my test photo (3760 × 5640) that's 1,880 pixels of hair, forehead or arms.
The circle mask. A circle inside a square covers π/4 of it, about 78.5%. The four corners are always gone, on every platform that shows round avatars.

You can't avoid the second one, but you can avoid the first: make the photo square yourself, without cropping, and then keep the subject away from the corners.

Squaring the photo with the Full DP Maker

The test file was a CC0 headshot from Wikimedia Commons: 3760 × 5640, 11.6 MB, a man in a blue shirt with crossed arms against a dark backdrop. That's a typical "photographer sent me the full-res file" situation.

1. Add the photo

Open the Full DP Maker and drop the photo in, pick it with the button, or paste it from the clipboard. The square is drawn on a canvas in your browser, so the 11.6 MB original never leaves your machine.

2. Choose what fills the empty sides

You get three options: Blur fills the sides with a blurred copy of the same photo, Color fills them with one flat color, and Crop is there if you decide you want to fill the frame after all.

For a person against a busy or textured background, Blur usually looks most natural because the colors already match. If the backdrop is plain, or the photo is a logo, Color looks cleaner. Here's the photo with Blur at the default photo size of 100%:

At 100% the photo touches the top and bottom of the square. That's fine for a square post, but for a circle the head is right where the mask starts curving in.

3. Pull the subject in with Photo size

This is the setting that makes the difference for avatars. I moved Photo size from 100% down to 80%. The whole photo shrinks toward the center and the blurred fill grows around it, so the head and elbows sit inside the circle instead of in the corners.

Go lower if the photo has important stuff near its edges. The tool's own advice is to keep text in the middle 70% of the square.

4. Download, then check it in a circle before uploading

Leave the download size at 1024 × 1024 and the format at JPEG, and click Download DP. My 11.6 MB original came out as a 1024 × 1024 JPEG of about 133 KB, which any app will accept without complaining.

Before uploading, I masked both versions with a circle to see roughly what the app will show. On the left is the original with its center square taken (what you get if you just accept the app's crop), and on the right is the Full DP export:

The cropped version cuts into the hair and loses most of the arms. The padded version keeps the whole person. The trade-off is that he's smaller in the circle, which matters at 40 pixels in a chat list.

When padding is the wrong call

Tight headshots. If the face already fills most of the frame, padding just makes it smaller. Choose the crop yourself with Square Crop and move the box so the face sits in the middle.
Very wide photos. A 16:9 landscape padded to a square leaves big bands above and below, and the person turns into a speck. Crop it.
Busy backgrounds. A blurred copy of a cluttered background looks muddy. Switch to Color, or tune the blur strength in the Blurred Frame editor.
Low-resolution originals. Fitting a 300-pixel photo into a 1024 square doesn't add detail.

If you need a square for a post rather than an avatar, the main square converter on squareimage.dev does the same blur, color, resize and crop modes and defaults to 1200 px.

Sample photo: "Rob Headshot HQ", Wikimedia Commons, CC0.

Convert images to WebP or AVIF for faster pages (and check which one is actually smaller)

videocompress — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 11:57:17 +0000

PageSpeed Insights flags your images ("Improve image delivery" now, "Serve images in next-gen formats" in older reports), and the standard advice is to convert everything to WebP, or to AVIF if you want the smallest files. I wanted to see whether that holds up, so I converted one batch to WebP, AVIF and JPG at the same time and compared the sizes.

AVIF won once out of four. For three big camera photos, the plain JPG beat both newer formats. So this post is less "use format X" and more "measure your own images before you touch your markup", which takes about a minute with the right tool.

The scoreboard

The batch was four files, picked to look like what a typical site serves: three 4032×3024 phone photos (a pond, a land-art park, a railroad park; lots of grass and leaves, 6.5–6.7 MB each) and one 2880×1628 PNG screenshot of a browser window (1.9 MB). All four are CC0 from Wikimedia Commons. Here's what came out:

File	Original	WebP	AVIF	JPG
lake-pond.jpg	6.7 MB	2.5 MB (−62%)	3.5 MB (−48%)	2.1 MB (−69%)
earthworks.jpg	6.5 MB	2.9 MB (−55%)	3.8 MB (−41%)	2.2 MB (−66%)
rail-park.jpg	6.5 MB	2.6 MB (−61%)	3.5 MB (−47%)	2.1 MB (−68%)
browser-screenshot.png	1.9 MB	219.2 KB (−88%)	170.0 KB (−91%)	253.8 KB (−86%)

Taking the smallest version of each file, the batch went from 21.6 MB to about 6.6 MB ("Saved 15.0 MB total · 70% smaller"). Every output kept its original dimensions.

I wondered whether the photo result was a quirk of full camera resolution, so I resized the three photos to 1600×1200 with a script and ran them again. The order didn't change: JPG 381–446 KB, WebP 538–597 KB, AVIF 672–749 KB.

Why "just use AVIF" didn't hold here

PixSip's image format guide gives the usual rules of thumb: JPG or WebP for photos, PNG for screenshots and UI, WebP or AVIF when you want the smallest website images. All current major browsers decode both WebP and AVIF, so browser support isn't really the obstacle anymore. Whether the file is actually smaller is.

That depends on the encoder settings as much as on the format. PixSip has no quality slider. Each format gets one fixed quality picked by its developers, so this table isn't a lab comparison at matched quality. It shows what you'd actually get from the tool. With those settings, MozJPEG was the most aggressive on detailed outdoor photos, while the screenshot's flat colors and sharp text played to AVIF's and WebP's strengths.

Run the same test on your own images

Pick the formats before you drop anything

Open PixSip's WebP converter. It takes JPG, PNG, HEIC, WebP and AVIF, up to 20 files per batch and 10 MB per file on the free plan. Nothing gets uploaded: libwebp, libavif and MozJPEG run as WebAssembly inside the tab.

Before dropping files, look under the drop area. "Convert my images automatically" is already on, with WEBP selected. Click AVIF and JPG too. The free plan writes up to three formats per image, which is exactly the comparison you need: two next-gen candidates plus a JPG that doubles as the fallback. The same switch sits on the PixSip homepage, where JPEG XL is also an option (all five formats at once needs the Ultra plan).

Drop the batch and let the check marks pick

Now drop the files. My four took about 30 seconds; AVIF is the slow one. Each file gets one box per format with its size and saving, and a check mark lands on the smallest. You don't have to do any arithmetic.

Zoom in on the winner

Click Compare on a row to see the original next to the smallest output (here the 1.9 MB PNG against the 170 KB AVIF), with a drag divider and a Zoom 1:1 button. Small text in screenshots is the first thing to go soft, so check it at 1:1 before you commit.

Download 4 as ZIP gives you every format of every file, named like browser-screenshot-compressed.avif, so you can keep the winners and the fallbacks.

Ship only the winners

Use <picture> only where a next-gen format actually won. For the screenshot, that's AVIF first, WebP second, and the JPG as the fallback every browser can show:

<picture>
  <source srcset="/img/browser-screenshot.avif" type="image/avif">
  <source srcset="/img/browser-screenshot.webp" type="image/webp">
  <img src="/img/browser-screenshot.jpg" alt="Arc browser showing a Wikipedia article"
       width="2880" height="1628" loading="lazy" decoding="async">
</picture>

The browser uses the first <source> whose type it supports and skips the rest, so put the smallest one first. Keep width and height on the <img> so the layout doesn't jump while the image loads.

For the three photos, I'd skip <picture> and serve the compressed JPG. It was the smallest file, and it's one less format to keep in sync. Resizing before you compress matters more anyway, because a 4032 px photo in a 1200 px column is the bigger waste.

If JPG keeps winning for your photos too, PixSip's JPG compressor gets you there with one less click.

How to convert iPhone HEIC photos to JPG without uploading them

videocompress — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 13:01:49 +0000

You AirDrop or email a few iPhone photos to a Windows laptop, and the files end in .heic. Photos won't open them, the upload form on some website rejects them, and the colleague you forwarded them to asks what format that is.

HEIC is Apple's default camera format. It's efficient, but outside Apple's own apps support is patchy. The usual fix is an "online HEIC converter," which means sending your personal photos to someone's server. You don't need to. Here's how to do it in the browser with the files staying on your machine, and how to come out with much smaller files while you're at it.

For this walkthrough I used three full-resolution iPhone photos (shot on an iPhone X, 12 Pro Max and 13 Pro, CC0 on Wikimedia Commons), saved as HEIC: 4032×3024 pixels, 3.1 MB, 4.1 MB and 4.7 MB.

1. Open the converter and drop in your HEIC files

Go to the HEIC to JPG converter on PixSip. No account needed. Drag your .heic files onto the drop area, or click it to pick them. The free plan takes up to 20 files at a time, each up to 10 MB, so full-size iPhone photos fit.

The decoding happens in the tab (WebAssembly), so nothing gets uploaded. If you want to check that yourself, load the page, switch off Wi-Fi, and then drop the files. It still works.

2. Pick your output formats: JPG, plus WebP and AVIF if you can use them

Below the drop area there's a "Convert my images automatically" switch with a row of formats. On this page JPG is already selected. There's no quality slider: PixSip encodes at one quality setting that it tuned against TinyPNG, and that setting is what does the shrinking.

I also ticked WebP and AVIF. The free plan writes up to three formats side by side, so you get all three versions of each photo from one drop and can keep whichever is smallest. Use JPG if the file is going somewhere picky (an old upload form, a printer, an email to someone on an old PC). WebP is fine for most websites and chat apps.

3. Check the results

Each photo gets a row with one box per format: the new size, the percentage saved, and a download button. A check mark sits on the smallest version of each photo. My three photos came out like this:

Photo	HEIC	JPG	WebP	AVIF
IMG_7364 (4032×3024)	3.1 MB	806.5 KB (−74%)	684.2 KB (−78%)	896.5 KB (−71%)
IMG_8097 (3024×4032)	4.1 MB	786.6 KB (−81%)	879.5 KB (−79%)	1.4 MB (−66%)
IMG_MILAN (3024×4032)	4.7 MB	645.5 KB (−86%)	548.7 KB (−88%)	728.6 KB (−85%)

Taking the smallest file for each photo, the batch went from 11.9 MB to about 2 MB (PixSip's summary: "Saved 9.9 MB total · 83% smaller"). I didn't resize anything, and PixSip doesn't have a resize option. The outputs are still 4032×3024. All of the saving comes from re-encoding at that calibrated quality.

A caveat so you know what to expect: how much you save depends on how heavily the HEIC was compressed to begin with. In an earlier run with small (1440×960) HEIC samples that were already tightly compressed, the JPGs came out only 1–42% smaller. A full-size iPhone HEIC can also come out bigger as a JPG, because HEIC is the more efficient format. If that happens, try the WebP version.

4. Compare before you download (optional)

Click Compare on any row to get a slider view: the decoded original on one side, the smallest output on the other (here the 684 KB WebP against the 3.1 MB original). Drag the divider, or use Zoom 1:1, to check fine detail like text, skies and skin tones before you send the file to anyone.

5. Download one file or the whole batch

Click the button in any format box to save just that file, or Download 3 as ZIP (the number matches your batch) to grab everything. The ZIP is put together in the browser too, with every format you picked, named like IMG_7364-compressed.jpg.

Metadata such as GPS location is stripped automatically. That's usually what you want before posting a photo publicly, but keep the original HEIC if you need the date and location later.

If you only need to view HEIC on Windows

Converting isn't always the answer. If you just want to open the photos on your own PC, Microsoft's HEIF/HEVC extensions or an iPhone camera setting might suit you better. This walkthrough of the three ways to open HEIC files on Windows compares them. And if you're curious why the tool runs locally instead of on a server, the team explains it in why PixSip doesn't upload your photos.

H.264 vs H.265: which codec when the size target still fails

videocompress — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 02:23:31 +0000

You already set a megabyte cap and the clip is still too big—or too slow to finish in a browser tab. That is when codec choice matters. Use H.264 when recipients must play it everywhere; switch to H.265 only when both ends support it and you need another size cut.

This walkthrough uses VidSmaller, a cloud compressor that hits an exact output size (Advanced mode unlocks H.265 on paid plans).

1. Upload once, keep the laptop cool

Open vidsmaller.com. Drop MP4, MOV, MKV, WebM, or another supported format. Guest accounts have per-file limits and limited credits. There is no watermark; uploads are deleted after processing.

Long 4K timelines belong here—not in a browser tab that can OOM mid-encode.

2. Hit the size first, then choose the codec

In Basic, set Output file size or tap Email / WhatsApp / Discord / Reddit so the two-pass job aims at a real number.

Then open Advanced:

H.264 + MP4 — default. Widest phone, chat app, and browser playback.
H.265 — smaller file at the same quality, slower encode, and older devices may refuse it.
Drop resolution (4K → 1080p or 720p) before you flip codecs if the source is huge.

For hard caps (forms, WhatsApp comfort), target about 1MB under the published limit so overhead does not push you over.

3. Download and verify playback

Start compression, wait for the cloud job, download. You can close the tab; the result link stays until it expires.

Spot-check on the device that will receive the file. If H.265 fails to play, re-run the same size target with H.264 (or one resolution step lower).

Sensitive short clips that fit in device memory can stay local: videocompress.dev.

Shrink a 4K phone video for WhatsApp or email

videocompress — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 10:42:36 +0000

4K clips blow past WhatsApp and mailbox limits fast. Knock resolution down first, then set an exact megabyte target in the cloud so a long encode does not kill the browser tab.

1. Upload the 4K source

Open vidsmaller.com. Drop MP4, MOV, or another supported file. Guests get large per-file limits and limited credits. No watermark; uploads are removed after the job.

2. Cap the size, then fix resolution

In Basic, tap WhatsApp or Email, or drag Output file size (often ~16MB for WhatsApp comfort, ~18–20MB toward a 25MB mailbox).

In Advanced, set 1080p (or 720p) before chasing codecs. Prefer H.264 + MP4 for playback. H.265 can go smaller but older phones may fail.

3. Download and send

Start the job, wait, download. You can leave the page; the result link stays until it expires.

Still too big? Drop one more resolution step and re-run before switching codecs.

Short private clips that fit in memory can stay local: videocompress.dev.

Make an Instagram-ready square without cropping faces

videocompress — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 08:42:17 +0000

Feed posts want 1:1. A hard crop on a wide shot often clips a shoulder or forehead. Pad instead: keep the whole photo centered and fill the empty bands.

1. Drop the photo in the browser

Open squareimage.dev. Add JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF, or BMP. Encoding stays in the tab — no account, no upload.

2. Pad first, crop only if you mean it

Blur background — subject stays intact; empty sides are a blurred copy. Adjust scale/blur in the blurred frame editor.
Solid color — same padding with a flat fill; good for products and logos.
Resize — stretches to square; use only when distortion is fine.
Crop 1:1 — when you want to cut edges. Also at square crop.

People and landscapes: start with blur. Clean studio backgrounds: solid color usually looks cleaner.

3. Export at Instagram’s square size

Default is 1200×1200. For the feed, 1080×1080 is the usual Instagram square. JPEG for photos, PNG if you need transparency, WebP for a smaller file.

Close the tab and the file is gone from the session. More on sizes: 1:1 size guide. Profile-style full frames: full DP.

Email says the video is too large — shrink it to ~25MB in the browser

videocompress — Sat, 19 Sep 2026 01:40:17 +0000

Gmail, Outlook, and a lot of corporate mail reject video attachments once the message crosses their size line. The number people quote is usually 25MB, but Base64 wrapping eats headroom, so a file that shows 24.8MB on disk can still bounce.

If you do not want that clip on a random “online compressor” server, re-encode it in the tab instead.

1. Drop the file into a local compressor

Open videocompress.dev. Drag in MP4, MOV, WebM, or MKV. Decoding and encoding stay in the browser — no signup, no upload, no watermark.

2. Aim under the mailbox cap, not at it

Pick Target size. For email, type 25, or use compress video to a target size and set 25 there.

If past sends failed at “almost 25,” try 18–20MB so headers and encoding still fit. Discord-style paths such as compress MP4 for Discord target a lower ceiling; email can keep more bits.

Keep resolution on a screen recording with readable text unless the preview looks blocky — then drop one step (1080 → 720) and run again.

3. Download H.264 MP4 and attach

When the job finishes, download the MP4 (H.264 + AAC) and attach it to the draft.

Still rejected? Lower resolution once more, or read the video compression guide for bitrate tradeoffs. Tighter caps: compress video to 10MB.

Long 4K that kills the tab? Move that job to the exact-size cloud compressor instead.

How to compress a video to an exact file size (email, WhatsApp, Discord)

videocompress — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 09:42:56 +0000

A lot of “25MB email limits” actually bounce around 18–20MB once the message wrapper is counted. WhatsApp is often happier near 15–16MB. Discord’s free tier is now 20MB, the same neighborhood.

If the clip is short and you care about privacy, compress it in the browser. If it is long, 4K, or your laptop fans are already loud, compress the video to an exact size in the cloud — type the number, wait for the job.

1. Upload the file

Go to vidsmaller.com. Drag in MP4, MOV, MKV, WebM, or any of the other 33 formats. Signed-out you get 500MB per file and a handful of free credits. Nothing is watermarked. Uploads are deleted after the job.

2. Type the size, or tap a preset

Use Basic. Drag Output file size, or tap Email / WhatsApp / Discord / Reddit. Those presets are the usual ceilings so you do not do the arithmetic.

The cloud video compressor is two-pass: it aims at the number you asked for, not “about 3× over.” It is still an encode, not a guarantee to the last kilobyte — if a form is strict, aim a megabyte under the published cap (18MB for a 25MB mailbox is the usual move).

Need more control? Advanced has H.264 vs H.265, CRF, and resolution. H.264 + MP4 is what you want if someone else has to play the file. H.265 is smaller and slower, and older phones may refuse it.

3. Download and send

Start compression, wait for the cloud job, download. You can close the tab; the result stays on the link until it expires.

If the output is still too big, drop resolution one step (4K → 1080p is usually the largest win) and run it again. Do not jump to H.265 first unless both ends can play it.

Short clip, and you do not want an upload at all? Compress a video for Discord's 20MB limit in the browser.

How to make a photo square without cropping the subject

videocompress — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 09:40:44 +0000

Instagram, profile photos, and a lot of marketplaces expect a 1:1 image. A wide landscape or a tall portrait gets the sides or the head cut off if you just hit crop.

You do not have to lose those pixels. Make the image square by padding it: keep the whole photo in the center, and fill the empty bands with a blur or a solid color.

1. Open the tool

Go to squareimage.dev. No account, no watermark. Drop in a JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF, or BMP. The file is processed in the browser and is not uploaded.

2. Pick blur or a solid color — not crop

Blur background — best for portraits and landscapes. The full photo stays visible; the empty sides are a blurred copy of the same image. Need more control over scale and blur strength? Use the blurred frame editor.
Solid color — best for products and logos. Same idea, with a flat color instead of a blur.
Resize — stretches the picture to 1:1. Only use this when distortion is acceptable (patterns, some graphics).
Crop 1:1 — use this last, when the subject already fills the frame and you want to throw away the edges. That path also lives as a dedicated square crop. Default download is 1200×1200. 1080×1080 is the usual Instagram square. JPEG for photos, PNG if you need a lossless file or transparency, WebP if you want a smaller web file.

Download it to your device. Closing the tab clears the session.

If you later need a tight close-up, run crop on a copy — do not start there on a wide photo you wanted to keep whole. For which pixel size to pick, see the 1:1 size guide.
Start with blur. If the subject is a product on a clean background, switch to a matching solid color.

3. Export at 1080 or 1200

How to compress a video for Discord's 20MB limit (in the browser)

videocompress — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 03:31:30 +0000

Discord's free upload limit is 20MB (it was 10MB until August 2026). A two-minute screen recording or a phone clip is often bigger than that, so the upload fails and you start hunting for an "online compressor."

Most of those sites upload the file to a server. If the clip is a client call, a game session, or anything you do not want sitting on someone else's disk, that is the wrong tool.

You can compress a video for Discord in the browser instead. The file never leaves the tab.

1. Open the compressor

Go to videocompress.dev. There is no account and no watermark. Pick the video (MP4, MOV, WebM, MKV, and other formats your browser can decode). It stays on your machine.

2. Set the target to 20MB

Choose Target size and enter 20. That is the Discord free-tier cap (up from 10MB in August 2026). The Discord MP4 compressor does the same job with the target already set near 19MB so you slip under the cap. If the clip is a screen recording with a lot of text, keep the original resolution first. Dropping to 720p only helps when the encode is starving for bits. On a test screen recording I ran back when the cap was 10MB (10.70MB → target 10MB) the output was 5.61MB at the same 1280×720, and the on-page text stayed readable. With 20MB you get twice the budget, so it only gets easier.

3. Download the MP4 and send it

Output is MP4 (H.264 + AAC), which Discord plays without a fight. Upload that file in the channel.

If it is still too big: set resolution to 720p and run it again. If your phone runs out of memory on a long 4K clip, use a desktop — there is no server quota, but there is a device-memory quota.

For why a target works (and when it goes soft), see the video compression guide.

What this does not do

It does not upload the video. It does not promise a specific look at 20MB on every source. A 45-second noisy 1080p clip will look softer than a talking-head clip of the same size. Judge the preview before you send.

Need a hard cap on a file that is too large for the browser tab? Compress the video to an exact file size in the cloud instead.

The tool picks a bitrate from the duration and leaves a safety margin, so the download usually lands under your target rather than slightly over.

DEV Community: videocompress

Lighthouse Said My Hero Images Were Too Heavy. I Compressed the Phone JPGs in the Browser and Re-Measured

The inventory (Network → Img first)

1. Open /compress-jpg and wait for the lock

2. Drop the batch, read the results table

3. Verify pixels, EXIF, GPS

4. Compare at 1:1, then your own 100% crop

5. Swap the files and re-weigh

Short checklist

Photo credits (CC0)

Related

Your .webm or .mov keeps getting rejected — convert it to a smaller MP4 in the browser

Why .webm and .mov trip up uploads

1. Open the compressor and drop the file

2. Switch to Target size (skip the quality presets for a hard cap)

3. Compress the WebM → MP4

4. Compress the MOV the same way

5. Download and spot-check

Checklist

Fit a tall photo into a WhatsApp or LinkedIn circle without losing your head

What the app actually does with your photo

Squaring the photo with the Full DP Maker

1. Add the photo

2. Choose what fills the empty sides

3. Pull the subject in with Photo size

4. Download, then check it in a circle before uploading

When padding is the wrong call

Convert images to WebP or AVIF for faster pages (and check which one is actually smaller)

The scoreboard

Why "just use AVIF" didn't hold here

Run the same test on your own images

Pick the formats before you drop anything

Drop the batch and let the check marks pick

Zoom in on the winner

Ship only the winners

How to convert iPhone HEIC photos to JPG without uploading them

1. Open the converter and drop in your HEIC files

2. Pick your output formats: JPG, plus WebP and AVIF if you can use them

3. Check the results

4. Compare before you download (optional)

5. Download one file or the whole batch

If you only need to view HEIC on Windows

H.264 vs H.265: which codec when the size target still fails

1. Upload once, keep the laptop cool

2. Hit the size first, then choose the codec

3. Download and verify playback

Sensitive short clips that fit in device memory can stay local: videocompress.dev.

Shrink a 4K phone video for WhatsApp or email

1. Upload the 4K source

2. Cap the size, then fix resolution

3. Download and send

Make an Instagram-ready square without cropping faces

1. Drop the photo in the browser

2. Pad first, crop only if you mean it

3. Export at Instagram’s square size

Email says the video is too large — shrink it to ~25MB in the browser

1. Drop the file into a local compressor

2. Aim under the mailbox cap, not at it

3. Download H.264 MP4 and attach

How to compress a video to an exact file size (email, WhatsApp, Discord)

1. Upload the file

2. Type the size, or tap a preset

3. Download and send

How to make a photo square without cropping the subject

1. Open the tool

2. Pick blur or a solid color — not crop

3. Export at 1080 or 1200

How to compress a video for Discord's 20MB limit (in the browser)

1. Open the compressor

2. Set the target to 20MB

3. Download the MP4 and send it

What this does not do