An upload form says "maximum 2 MB", your e-mail bounces, or your website loads slowly — all because of image size. Here are five methods that reliably make images smaller, from the most effective to the finishing touches.
1. Reduce the dimensions
The number of pixels has the biggest influence on file size. A 12-megapixel phone photo (4000 × 3000) has 12 million pixels; resized to 2000 × 1500 it has just 3 million — a quarter of the data.
Ask yourself how big the image will actually be shown. For most screens and documents, 1600–2000 px on the long side is plenty.
Use the Image Resizer.
2. Compress with a lower quality setting
JPG and WebP let you choose a quality level. Dropping from 100% to around 75% typically halves the file size or better, with little visible change.
The Image Compressor lets you set quality and a maximum size in one step, and shows you exactly how much you saved.
- Photos saved as PNG are often huge. Convert them to JPG with the PNG to JPG converter or to WebP.
- WebP is typically 25–35% smaller than JPG at similar quality. Try the WebP Converter.
4. Crop away what you don't need
Cropping removes pixels too. If only the center of a photo matters — a document on a table, a product on a background — cropping the edges makes the file smaller and the image clearer.
5. Remove metadata
Photos carry hidden EXIF metadata: camera model, settings, sometimes GPS coordinates and a thumbnail. It's usually small, but removing it also protects your privacy. Images re-encoded by our compressor and converter don't carry the original EXIF data.
Putting it together
For a typical phone photo:
- Resize to 2000 px on the long side.
- Compress to 75% quality (JPG or WebP).
Result: often 200–500 KB instead of 3–6 MB.
When not to reduce size
Keep full-resolution originals for printing large formats, professional editing and archiving. Always compress a copy, never your only original.
Conclusion
Resize first, then compress, and choose the right format. Those three steps solve almost every "file too large" problem in seconds.