How to compress a JPG
- Drop in your photos. Other supported image formats can go in the same batch — they will be exported as JPG too.
- Tick the ones you want in this round. Everything you add starts selected; untick anything you want to skip.
- Leave Export as on JPG, then set Quality. Lower means a smaller file and more visible compression; higher means a larger file that stays closer to the original.
- Press Export. A single file downloads directly; two or more arrive as one ZIP.
- Not small enough, or too rough? Your files are still in the workspace — move the quality slider and export again.
That last step is the whole workflow. There is no target-size box to type into: you pick a quality, look at the result, and adjust. Because nothing is re-uploaded, trying three settings costs nothing but three clicks.
What actually happens to the picture
The file is decoded back to pixels and then encoded again as a JPG at the quality you chose. That is a lossy step: detail that the new encoding throws away is gone from the exported file for good. The original on your disk is untouched, so you always have it to go back to, but the file you download cannot be restored to what it was.
The pixel dimensions do not change. A 4000 × 3000 photo comes out 4000 × 3000. This page changes how the image is encoded, not how big it is on screen. If what you actually need is a smaller picture rather than a smaller file, resizing is a different operation and this is not the page for it.
Because the picture is re-encoded rather than copied, metadata does not survive. EXIF, camera model, capture date, ICC colour profile and any GPS coordinates are not written into the output. For sharing, that is often the point. If you need any of it, keep the original file.
Sometimes the file will not get smaller
- Large, lightly-compressed photos straight off a camera or phone — this is where the savings are biggest.
- Already-optimised images from the web or a messaging app — expect little movement, and sometimes growth.
- Screenshots and flat graphics — JPG is the wrong format for these. PNG or WebP will usually be both smaller and sharper.
This is worth stating plainly rather than hiding in a FAQ. If a photo has already been compressed hard — by a phone, by a chat app, by a website's own pipeline — then re-encoding it at a high quality setting can produce a larger file than the one you started with. Nothing has gone wrong when that happens; you are asking a lossy encoder to faithfully reproduce an image that is already full of compression artefacts, and faithfully reproducing artefacts costs bytes.
The practical answer is to lower the quality until the size moves, and to compare the result with the original before you keep it. Every exported file's size is shown in the results list, so the comparison is right there.
What this page supports
- Input: JPG and JPEG (including the .jfif spelling) — plus PNG, WebP, AVIF and BMP if you want to put them through the same export.
- Output: JPG, with a quality setting from 1 to 100. PNG and WebP are one dropdown away if you decide JPG is the wrong format for a particular image.
- Dimensions: unchanged. There is no resizing here, and no target-file-size search.
- Quality: a real re-encode every time. Exporting a JPG as a JPG does not quietly hand back the original file — the quality you choose is genuinely applied.
- Transparency: JPG has none. If a PNG or WebP with transparent areas goes through this export, those areas are filled with the background colour you pick.
- Metadata: EXIF, ICC profiles, capture dates and GPS coordinates are not carried over.
- Batch: files are processed one at a time so memory stays predictable; duplicate output names are numbered automatically.
- Size: no fixed limit is imposed. The practical ceiling is your device's memory.
Questions
Are my photos uploaded?
No. Everything happens inside your browser tab: files are read from disk into memory, decoded, re-encoded and handed back to you as a download. Nothing is sent to a server, so there is no server-side copy to delete afterwards. You can keep the network panel open while you compress — it stays quiet.
Is this lossless?
No, and it cannot be. Making a JPG smaller means discarding detail — that is what JPG compression is. What you control is how much. The original file on your disk is never modified, so you can always start over from it.
Will my file definitely get smaller?
No. For a large, lightly-compressed photo it almost always will, often dramatically. For an image that has already been squeezed by a phone or a website, a high quality setting can produce a bigger file than the one you started with. Lower the quality and export again — the size of every result is listed so you can see what happened.
Does this change the width and height?
No. Pixel dimensions are preserved exactly. This page re-encodes the image; it does not resize it. If you need a smaller picture rather than a smaller file, that is a different operation.
Can I compress to an exact file size, like under 200 KB?
Not on this page. There is no target-size box and no automatic search — you choose a quality and export. Because the files stay in the workspace and nothing is re-uploaded, checking two or three settings takes a few seconds.
Is EXIF or GPS data kept?
No. The image is decoded and encoded again, and metadata is not copied across — that includes EXIF, camera model, capture date, ICC colour profile and GPS coordinates. If you need any of it, keep the original file.
Which quality should I pick?
There is no single right answer, which is why it is a slider rather than a preset. For photos being shared or attached to an email, the mid-to-high range is usually indistinguishable from the original at normal viewing size. Go lower when size matters more than fine detail, and check the result before you keep it.