Compress a video
Get a file under an upload limit. Pick how much quality you are willing to trade and see what it saved.
- Free
- Runs on your device
- No account
- No limits
One file at a time. The video is edited on your own device, so nothing is uploaded and there's no size limit beyond what your browser can hold.
How to compress a video
- Drop a video in the box above.
- Pick a quality. Lower quality means a smaller file.
- Download. The file keeps its name and its format, with -compressed added.
- The first video also fetches the video engine, about 7MB, which your browser then keeps. After that it starts straight away.
About compressing video here
Quality here is a constant rate factor, which tells the encoder how much detail it's allowed to throw away rather than aiming at a target size. It's the setting that gives the most consistent result, because a still shot and a fast pan need very different amounts of data to look the same.
If compression alone isn't enough, resizing does more and does it more predictably. Halving the width leaves a quarter of the pixels, and that shows up in the file size immediately. Dropping the frame rate is the other big lever. Both remove something you can point at, rather than asking the encoder to guess.
This edit changes the picture, so every frame has to be decoded and encoded again. Your own machine does that work, which is what keeps the file off anybody's server, and it's why a long clip takes longer than a short one. Trimming and removing the sound are the two things here that skip it entirely.
Common questions
Is the compress a video free?
Yes, properly free. No paid tier, no trial, no watermark on the result and nothing to sign up for. Put as many files through it as you like, as often as you like.
Are my files uploaded to a server?
No. The compress a video runs inside your browser, on your own machine, so your files never go anywhere. Big ones are fine too, up to whatever your browser can hold.
How small can I get a video without it looking bad?
Around half the original size is usually invisible on ordinary footage, and a quarter is often acceptable for something watched on a phone. Past that it starts to show first in fast movement and in flat areas like a sky, which go blotchy. Footage with a lot of motion needs more data than a static shot to look the same, so there's no single answer.
Should I compress or resize to get under an upload limit?
Resize first, then compress if you still need to. Halving the width leaves a quarter of the pixels and the file size tends to follow, which is a bigger and more predictable saving than any quality setting. Compression is the finer control to reach for once the picture is already the size it needs to be.