Compress an image to 1MB

Drop a photo in and it comes out at or under 1 MB — in your browser, so it is never uploaded anywhere.

Compress your photo now ↓

What 1 MB is usually for

1 MB is the usual limit on the more generous upload forms, and the point at which most email providers and content systems stop complaining.

What you'll actually get at this size

1 MB is a lot of room. Nothing visible is lost on a normal photo. If a file is fighting a 1 MB limit, the cause is almost always the format rather than the quality: a screenshot or a graphic saved as PNG can be many megabytes, and converting it to JPEG will collapse it — which is exactly what this does.

If your form gives a range, use both numbers. Portals often say "between 20 KB and 50 KB". Most compressors honour only the ceiling, hand you a file far under the floor, and the form rejects it for being too small. And if you also resize to the exact pixel size the form wants, the photo often lands under the minimum naturally — at which point compressing harder cannot help, because shrinking is the wrong direction. The tool below takes both ends of the range, and will raise the file back up to clear the floor.

Frequently asked questions

What's usually making a file bigger than 1 MB?

The format, more often than the quality. A screenshot or graphic saved as PNG can be many megabytes; converted to JPEG it collapses to a fraction of that. For photos, the other culprit is dimensions — a 4000-pixel camera photo is carrying detail no upload form will ever display.

Does compressing to 1 MB visibly reduce quality?

On a normal photo, no — 1 MB is a generous budget, and nothing a human notices is lost getting under it. It is the limit at which most email providers and upload forms stop complaining.

Should I resize or compress to get under 1 MB?

If the file is only a little over, compress. If it is several times over, resize the pixels first — file size scales with pixel count, so shrinking 4000 pixels to 2000 quarters the size before compression even starts, and the screen-visible result is identical.