How to make photos smaller for email and chat
Why phone photos are so big, and how to shrink them without them looking worse.
A photo from a modern phone is often 3 to 8 MB. That's more than many email services accept as an attachment, and it makes chats and websites slow. Most of that size is detail nobody sees on a screen, so it can usually be cut by 70 to 90 percent without a visible change.
Where the size comes from
Two things decide how big an image file is: how many pixels it has and how strongly it's compressed. A 12-megapixel photo is about 4000 × 3000 pixels, while a laptop screen shows around 1920 × 1080. Lowering the compression quality a little (for example to 75–85%) removes detail the eye barely notices.
Step by step
- Open Compress images. The tool works inside your browser, so your photos are never uploaded.
- Add one or several photos.
- Start with 75% quality. Compare the result; if you see blocky areas in skies or faces, try 85%.
- If the file is still too large, also resize it to 2000 pixels on the long side. For email, 1600 is plenty.
- Download the new files and attach those instead of the originals.
Good targets
- Email attachments: under 1 MB per photo.
- Websites and blogs: 150–400 KB per image.
- Profile pictures: under 200 KB.
Keep your originals. Compressed copies are for sharing; the full-size file is what you want for printing or editing later.