Compress JPG

1. Add your JPG photos. Drag them onto the upload box or choose them from your device. The picker on this page takes files ending in .jpg or .jpeg, and one run handles up to 10 of them.
2. Find the Quality box. After a file is added, the options appear below the file list. Quality is a whole number from 40 to 95 and starts at 75. It is the only setting.
3. Choose a number that fits the job. Try 75 first and look at the result. If the file is still too big, run your original again with a lower number; if you see blocky patches or fuzzy edges, go higher.
4. Select Run Compress image. Your photos upload to private storage and our servers re-save them one at a time. The progress counter moves only when a photo is finished.
5. Sign in to see the result. The result page asks for a free account, which you open with Google or an emailed code and no password. Each file is then listed with its new size, along with a note for any photo that came back unchanged.
6. Download or save. Every file has its own Download button and a Save button that keeps a copy in My documents past the temporary window. With several photos, one button saves the whole set. Nothing is zipped.

JPG is a lossy format. It stays small by throwing away fine detail that the eye is least likely to miss, and the Quality number sets how much goes. Lower numbers give a smaller file and more visible damage: blocky patches, blurred edges and halos around text or sharp outlines.

• Toward 95 keeps the photo close to the file you uploaded and saves the least. The starting value of 75 is a first try, not a rule.
• Toward 40 gives the smallest files and the most visible damage. It can work for a thumbnail, and rarely for a photo someone will study closely.
• The same number means different things in different software. Phones, editors and websites each use their own scale, so judge by looking at the result, not by comparing numbers.
• Grainy, detailed photos shrink less. Noise from a dim room, leaves and fine textures are hard to compress, while smooth skies and plain walls are not.
• Always compress the original. Each lossy save removes more detail, so if a result disappoints, rerun the file from your camera or phone, not the compressed copy.

Quality is not the only lever. Width and height matter just as much: halving both leaves a quarter of the pixels to store, and Compress image does not reduce them. If a photo is far larger than its use needs, Resize image can shrink it to a maximum width and/or height first. For pictures shown only on web pages, a WebP made with JPG to WebP is often smaller than a JPG that looks similar, but some older apps and upload forms accept only JPG or PNG.

• You may get the original back. Each photo is judged on its own. If the new file would be the same size or larger, which happens with JPG files already saved at low quality and with small ones, you get your upload untouched and a note on the result page says so. A run with some photos compressed and others returned is normal.
• Compressed photos lose hidden details, but returned originals keep them. A re-saved JPG leaves out EXIF data such as the camera model, the date and the GPS location, plus XMP, IPTC and embedded comments. An original handed back unchanged still contains all of it. If removing location data is the goal, use Remove image metadata, which checks its output, because compressing is not a privacy step.
• Pixels and color. A phone photo that relies on a rotation flag is rotated for real and saved without the flag, so every app shows it upright and its stored width and height may swap; an unchanged original keeps its flag. An embedded color profile is carried over when it matches the picture, and a black-and-white JPG stays grayscale. A CMYK JPG, which mostly comes from print work, is converted to RGB when it is re-saved, so its colors can shift, and the result page says so. A re-saved multi-picture JPG, such as a phone photo with a depth map, keeps only its main picture; a returned original is unchanged.
• Names carry over. Each result is named after its original, with .jpeg changed to .jpg and unusual characters replaced. Because the names match, save the results in a different folder before replacing anything.
• Limits. A run takes up to 10 JPG files totaling no more than 25 MB, and each photo can be up to 40 megapixels (width times height, in millions of pixels). Full-resolution shots from some high-megapixel phones are over that, and one oversized photo makes the whole run fail, so shrink it in a photo editor first. A free account can run 10 conversions a day, and a run counts once however many photos it holds. Pro, at $9.99 a month, includes 500 conversions a month (the free plan has 10 a day) and 25 GB of saved documents.

To send the compressed photos as one document, Images to PDF puts JPG files into a single PDF and, for a standard JPG, keeps the image data as it is.