Job applications, government portals, school forms and email often cap images at 1 MB. A photo straight off a modern phone is usually several times that. The good news is that you can almost always get under the limit without the image looking any different.
The quick version
- Resize the image to the size it will actually be seen at.
- Compress it at around 75–80% quality.
- Check the format: photos should be JPG, not PNG.
Most photos are under 1 MB after step 2. If yours isn’t, lower the size or quality a little more.
Or let a tool do it: Compress to File Size takes a target such as 1 MB and finds the highest quality that fits, making the image smaller only if it has to.
Step 1: resize first
File size follows pixel count, and phone photos have far more pixels than a form or an email needs. A 12-megapixel photo is 4032 × 3024 pixels. Resized to 2000 pixels on the long side, it keeps about a quarter of its pixels, and the file shrinks roughly in proportion.
Sensible sizes, measured on the long side:
| Where it’s going | Long side |
|---|---|
| Upload form with no stated size | 1600–2000 px |
| Email attachment | 1600 px |
| Full-width image on a website | 1920–2400 px |
| Image within an article or blog post | 1200–1600 px |
If the form states a pixel size, use that instead. Use the Image Resizer, or the Batch Image Resizer for several at once.
Step 2: compress
Re-saving a photo at 75–80% quality usually makes no visible difference and cuts the size substantially. The Image Compressor shows the new size and a side-by-side comparison before you download, so you can check the result.
Be careful going much below 60%. Faces become blotchy, skies show bands of colour and text gets fuzzy edges.
Step 3: use the right format
- A photo saved as PNG? Convert it with PNG to JPG. This alone often takes a photo from several megabytes to a few hundred kilobytes.
- A screenshot or document scan? JPG blurs text. Keep it as PNG and let the compressor reduce the number of colours, or resize it slightly.
- Does the site accept WebP? A WebP is usually a quarter to a third smaller than a JPG of similar quality. Try JPG to WebP. Most forms still want JPG, though, so check first.
Is 1 MB 1,000 KB or 1,024 KB?
It depends on the website. Some count 1 MB as 1,000,000 bytes, others as 1,048,576 (1,024 × 1,024). To pass either way, aim for about 950 KB.
The same file can also show different sizes on different computers. Windows counts in units of 1,024, as do the tools on this site. A Mac’s Finder counts in units of 1,000, so it shows slightly bigger numbers for the same file.
Why not just set the quality to 10%?
It will hit the size, but it wrecks the image. Resizing removes pixels nobody would have seen at that size. Heavy compression damages the pixels people will see. Resize first, then compress gently.