A single photo from a modern phone can be 3–8 MB. That's too big for many email attachments and upload forms, and it slows websites down. The good news: you can usually cut that by 70–90% without any difference you can see. Here's how.
1. Resize first: it's the biggest saving
Phone cameras take photos around 4000 × 3000 pixels. Most screens show far fewer. A photo displayed 1200 pixels wide on a website doesn't need to be 4000 pixels wide in the file.
Halving the width and height leaves a quarter of the pixels, so the file is typically around a quarter of the size, before you've touched the quality setting. Use the image resizer to set a sensible width:
- Email and messaging: 1600–2000 px on the long side
- Website content images: 1200–1600 px wide
- Full-width website banners: 1920–2400 px wide
- Thumbnails and profile pictures: 400–800 px
2. Choose the right format
| Format | Best for | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| JPG | Photos | Works everywhere; no transparency |
| WEBP | Photos and graphics on websites | 25–35% smaller than JPG; supports transparency |
| PNG | Screenshots, logos, text | Lossless and sharp, but large for photos |
A common mistake is saving photos as PNG. A photo saved as PNG can easily be five times the size of the same photo as a high-quality JPG.
3. Pick a quality setting
JPG and WEBP let you trade quality for size. The relationship isn't linear: going from 100% to 85% often halves the file size with no visible change, while going from 60% to 40% saves little and starts to show blocky artifacts.
- 85–90%: visually identical; good for portfolios and printing.
- 70–80%: the sweet spot for websites and email.
- 50–65%: for strict size limits; check for blockiness in skies and skin tones.
Our image compressor shows exactly how much each photo shrinks, so you can try a few settings and keep the smallest one that still looks right.
4. Don't compress the same image twice
Every time a JPG is saved, it loses a little more detail. Always compress from the original file, not from one that's already been compressed or downloaded from social media.
A quick recipe
- Resize to the largest size it will actually be shown at.
- Save photos as JPG (or WEBP for websites) and screenshots as PNG.
- Start at 75% quality, then lower it until you notice a difference, and go back one step.
Following those three steps, a 5 MB phone photo usually ends up between 150 and 400 KB, small enough for any email or upload form.