Image too large to upload? How to fix it

An upload form rejects your image because the file is bigger than it allows. Modern phone and camera photos are often far larger than any form needs, and you can shrink them in a minute. This tool does it in your browser, so the photo is not uploaded anywhere and you need no account.

Open the image compressor

The fix, step by step

Find the limit on the form itself. Limits differ from site to site, so check the form’s stated maximum rather than guessing.
Drop your image onto the compressor. Up to 5 at a time on the free plan.
Leave quality at 75%. For a large photo, also enter a number in “Max width/height (px)”, such as 2000 or 1600.
Press Compress and read the after-size shown next to each image.
Still over the limit? The tool does not aim for a target size, so lower the quality a notch or lower the max width and run again. Each run starts from your original file, so repeating it does not stack up damage.

Which setting to change first

Max width/height: the biggest lever for large photos. It scales the longest side down and keeps proportions. Images are never enlarged.
Quality: works for JPG and WebP. Dropping from 75% to 65% shrinks the file further, at the cost of fine detail.
PNG files: PNG is lossless, so quality does nothing. Only resizing makes a PNG smaller. If it is a photo saved as PNG, converting it to JPG is the real fix, and that is part of Pro.

Check the format as well as the size

Some forms accept only certain file types. The tool reads and writes JPG, PNG and WebP, so make sure the result is a type the form accepts, as well as small enough.

If the file barely shrinks

A file that was already well compressed has little left to give. When the result would be larger than your original, you get the original back labelled “already optimal”. That usually means you need to set a smaller max width, because quality alone has run out of room. Do not go smaller than you need, though: a very small image looks soft once it is displayed at full size.

A note on free plan limits

The free plan caps quality at 80% and output at 2000 px on the longest side (a blank max box means 2000). That covers the usual upload-limit problem. Because everything runs locally, it is also a sensible way to shrink personal documents or private photos without sending them to a third-party server.

Compress an image now