Compress JPG — smaller photos, you choose the quality
Drop a JPG below, move the quality slider to find your ideal balance, and download a lighter version. Everything runs in your browser — no upload.
Your file is processed entirely in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.
JPG compression is one of the most common operations on the web. Photos from modern phone cameras routinely weigh 5 to 15 MB at quality 95, which is far more than most destinations require. An email attachment needs to fit under 25 MB with room for other files. A blog hero image at 3 MB slows down the page. A product photo at 8 MB makes a marketplace listing heavy. In every case, re-encoding the JPG at a lower quality — say 75 to 85 — can cut the file size by 50 to 80 percent with a quality drop that most people cannot notice on a screen.
This tool uses the HTML5 Canvas API to decode your JPG, then re-encodes it with canvas.toBlob at the quality level you choose with the slider. The result is a new JPG with the same pixel dimensions but fewer bytes. At quality 85, the visual difference from the original is imperceptible on photographs. At quality 70, you start to see slight softness on sharp edges but the file can be 3 to 5 times smaller. At quality 50, artifacts become visible but the file is tiny — acceptable for thumbnails or quick previews. The slider gives you full control, and the result panel shows the exact savings before you download.
How to compress a JPG in 4 steps
- 1
Select your JPG file
Drop the file into the dropzone or click to browse. Any JPG from any source is accepted.
- 2
Adjust the quality slider
The default is 85 — a good starting point. Lower it for more compression, raise it to preserve more detail. The conversion runs each time you release the slider.
- 3
Compare the sizes
The result panel shows the original size, the compressed size, and the percentage saved. Try a few quality levels to find your sweet spot.
- 4
Download the compressed JPG
Save the lighter JPG to your device. The original is untouched — you can always re-compress at a different quality.
How does JPG quality affect file size?
JPG uses a lossy compression algorithm that divides the image into 8x8 pixel blocks, transforms them into frequency coefficients, and quantizes those coefficients based on the quality level. At quality 100, almost no data is discarded — the file is large but pixel-nearly-perfect. At quality 85, the encoder discards high-frequency detail that the human eye barely notices, producing a file 60 to 80 percent smaller than quality 100. At quality 70, more detail is discarded and slight artifacts appear on sharp edges. At quality 50 and below, the artifacts become clearly visible but the file is very small. For most web use, quality 75 to 85 is the practical sweet spot: the file is dramatically smaller than the camera output, and no one can tell the difference on a screen.
When should you compress a JPG?
Shrinking photos before emailing
Camera JPGs at quality 95 are overkill for email. Re-encoding at quality 80 cuts 60-70 percent of the weight and keeps the photos looking great.
Optimizing hero images for a website
Every byte of a hero image directly impacts LCP. Compressing from quality 95 to 80 can save 500 KB or more and shave real time off page load.
Preparing product photos for a marketplace
Marketplace listings with lighter images load faster and rank better in search. Quality 80-85 is the standard for product photography.
Batch-shrinking a photo library for cloud storage
If your phone backup fills up fast, re-encoding old photos at quality 80 can free 30-50 percent of storage with no visible quality loss.
Frequently asked questions
- What quality should I pick?
- For photographs intended for screens (web, email, social media), quality 75 to 85 is the sweet spot. At 85, the quality loss is imperceptible. At 75, you may notice very slight softness on sharp edges. For print, stay at 90 or above. For thumbnails, 60-70 is acceptable.
- Does compressing change the image dimensions?
- No. The pixel width and height remain identical. Only the internal compression changes, resulting in fewer bytes for the same number of pixels.
- Can I compress a JPG that was already compressed?
- Yes, but each lossy re-encoding loses a small amount of quality. If the original is already at quality 80, re-compressing at 80 again will shrink the file slightly but add a small layer of compression artifacts. Avoid re-compressing the same file many times.
- Will EXIF data (location, camera model) be preserved?
- No. The Canvas API strips EXIF metadata during re-encoding. If you need to keep EXIF, use a metadata-preserving compression tool. For privacy-conscious use cases, this metadata removal is actually a benefit.
- Is my photo uploaded?
- No. The Canvas API decodes and re-encodes your JPG entirely in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, stored, or logged.