compress images
Make an image file smaller without sending it anywhere. Pick how small, see the real result, and keep the original if compressing made it bigger.
There is no Google Drive or Dropbox button on purpose: those send the file through a server. Here is what happens instead.
in three steps
- Drop your images in, or choose them. Nothing is uploaded, so there is no wait and no limit.
- Pick a preset, or open the numbers and set the quality and the maximum side yourself.
- Compress, and check the real sizes in the rows. Anything that came out bigger is handed back untouched.
how it works
Pick a preset or open the numbers and set them yourself. Each image is decoded, optionally fitted to a longest side, and re-encoded at the quality you chose. The row for each file shows the size it actually came out at, not an estimate, because the work has already happened by the time you see it.
If the re-encoded file turns out larger than the original — which happens with images that were already compressed hard — you get the original back instead, and the row says so. A compressor that hands you a bigger file is worse than no compressor.
why doing this locally matters here
Compression services are the most common place a private photograph gets handed to a stranger, because the reason for compressing is almost always to send the picture somewhere — an insurance claim, a rental application, a medical form.
Doing it in the browser removes the middle step entirely. There is no upload to wait for, no queue when the service is busy, no limit on the number of files, and no copy sitting in someone's bucket after you are done. If you also want the camera and location data gone before you send the file on, remove the metadata.
questions
Where does my image go?
Nowhere. The compression happens in this tab: your browser decodes the image, re-encodes it at the quality you chose and hands the result back. Nothing is uploaded, and the job log under the tool shows the network requests the page made while compressing, which is none.
How small should I go?
Start at the "web page" preset, which is quality 80 and a 1600 pixel longest side, and look at the result. Most photographs survive 80 with no visible difference, and the saving is usually most of the file. Below about 60 you start to see blocking in skies and smooth gradients.
Why did my PNG barely get smaller?
PNG is a lossless format, so a quality setting does nothing to it — every pixel is preserved by definition. To make a PNG much smaller you have to change format: convert it to WebP, which keeps transparency, or to JPEG if it has none. The tool tells you this when you drop a PNG in.
What if the compressed file comes out bigger?
Then the tool gives you the original back instead, and the row says so. That happens with images that were already compressed hard, or with small graphics where the encoder's overhead outweighs the saving. Handing you a "compressed" file that grew would be useless.
Is there a limit on how many images at once?
No. Files are processed one at a time so a large batch does not exhaust the tab, progress is shown per file, and you can cancel partway and keep whatever is already done. The practical limit is your device's memory, not a quota someone set.
Is this really free?
Yes. No account, no trial, no watermark, no queue for free users. Advertising pays for the hosting, and because your files never reach a server of ours there is nothing about them to sell.