"The file exceeds the maximum allowed size." The town-hall form, the scholarship portal, the listings site, even some e-mails: all of them have a limit, and a phone photo usually exceeds it two or three times over.
There is nothing wrong with the photo. It is simply bigger than the recipient needs.
Why the photo is so big
A phone today takes 12–48 megapixel photos. A 12-megapixel photo saved as JPG is 3 to 6 MB; a HEIC from an iPhone about half that, but in a format many forms do not accept.
A form that asks for "under 2 MB" does not need 12 megapixels. On an ordinary screen, a photo 1600 pixels on the long side looks identical. The difference between the two is space used for nothing.
What is lost when you shrink
Two things can change, and it helps to know which is which:
- JPG quality. The JPG format compresses an image by dropping detail the eye does not easily distinguish. At quality 85–90 nothing shows; at 60, blotches start to appear in smooth areas such as sky. Most of the saving comes from here, without changing dimensions.
- Pixel count. If lower quality is still not enough, the photo has to lose pixels. A 4000 × 3000 photo brought to 1600 × 1200 loses three quarters of its pixels, but on screen it looks the same. In large print or when cropping, it shows.
The right order is quality first, pixels after. Many tools do it the other way round, or both at once, which is why a "compressed photo" sometimes looks far worse than it needed to.
How to get it under the limit
We built a tool that does exactly this: you tell it how big the photo may be, under 2 MB, 1 MB, 500 KB or any value you type, and it tries in order: it lowers the quality in small steps, then, only if it still does not fit, reduces the pixels. It stops at the first version that fits. For each photo it tells you the quality and dimensions that resulted.
Everything happens in your browser. The photo is not uploaded to any server, ours or anyone else's. You can check: once the page has loaded, switch the internet off and carry on.
It works with iPhone HEIC photos too: it opens them directly and saves them as JPG, under the chosen limit.
A detail the "free" tools do not mention
A phone photo carries, besides the image, the exact place where it was taken, the date and the phone model. When you upload the photo to a compression site, you upload that data too. When you forward it, you forward that as well.
The file you get from our tool is generated anew from the photo's pixels and inherits none of it. The photo looks the same; the address is no longer in it.
Which format to choose
- JPG: for forms, e-mail, listings. Accepted everywhere.
- WebP: 25–35% smaller at the same quality. Good for websites; not every form takes it.
- PNG: loses nothing, but for photos it is several times larger. Makes sense only for screenshots, logos and graphics.
In short
- A phone photo is 2–3 times bigger than a form needs.
- Shrinking done right lowers JPG quality first, pixels only after.
- Under 2 MB no difference shows on screen; under 200 KB a large photo will lose pixels too.
- With our tool you pick the limit, get the photo under it, and the photo neither leaves your device nor carries the place where it was taken.