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Compress

Compress an image for email

Photographs straight from a phone are commonly four to twelve megabytes each, which is why a handful of them will not attach, or arrive so slowly that nobody opens them.

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This compresses to a size you choose and then measures the finished file to confirm it actually got there. Attachment limits are not universal - twenty-five megabytes is common for large consumer providers, and corporate mail servers are frequently far stricter - so the page lets you pick the target rather than asserting a number that is wrong for your recipient.

How to compress an image for email

  1. Drop in the photo, or several of them.
  2. Pick a target size. One megabyte suits most mail and still looks good full-screen.
  3. Let it solve, then read the result - it reports the real size of what it made.
  4. Download, and attach that copy instead of the original.

Supported formats

This tool accepts JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF, BMP and AVIF files. Everything is decoded by your own browser, so the formats available depend on what your browser can open - which for HEIC in particular varies between Safari and other browsers.

Frequently asked questions

What size should I compress an image to for email?

One megabyte per photograph is a good default: comfortably inside every common limit even with several attached, and still sharp on a full screen. Go to 500 KB when you are sending a batch, or when you know the recipient is on a corporate server with a tight limit. Below about 200 KB a photograph starts to look visibly compressed, which is fine for a receipt and not for a picture somebody will look at.

What is the actual email attachment limit?

It depends on the provider, and on the stricter of the two ends. Large consumer providers commonly allow around twenty-five megabytes per message, but many workplace mail servers are set far lower, and the limit applies to the encoded message rather than the raw file, so the usable figure is smaller than the headline. Rather than guess for your recipient, pick a target that is comfortably under any plausible limit.

Will compressing ruin the photo?

Not at sensible targets. This searches for the highest quality that still fits the size you asked for rather than applying a fixed setting, and it will reduce dimensions only when the target cannot be reached any other way - and it tells you when it did. If a target turns out to be unreachable without wrecking the picture, it stops and says so instead of grinding it down to meet a number.

Should I send a smaller image or a link?

For a few photographs, attach compressed copies - the recipient gets them immediately with no account, no link and no expiry. For dozens of pictures, or when the originals matter at full resolution, a shared link is the better tool. This page is for the first case, which is the common one.

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