Compress
Compress to exact size
Hit your KB limit — landing at or just under it — for job portals, government forms, or any upload with a strict cap. Your files never leave your device.
Drop images here, or click to browse
JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF or BMP — or paste / take a photo
A target, not a slider
Most compressors give you a quality slider and leave you to guess. That is the wrong shape for the problem, because nobody wants “quality 62” — they want a file under 50 KB, because a form said so. So the number you give here is the size, and the settings needed to reach it are searched for rather than left to you.
The search runs on your own device. There is no upload, which means no queue, no file size cap imposed by somebody's free tier, and no copy of your passport photo sitting on a server whose retention policy you never read.
Quality first, dimensions only when it has to
Quality comes down first, but only to a floor — and the floor is measured on your image rather than fixed, because the same quality number that looks fine on a photograph shreds a scanned document full of thin black text. Past that floor the pixel dimensions come down instead, on the reasoning that a smaller sharp photo beats a full-size blocky one.
That ordering is why a 20 KB result is still legible. Pushing quality alone all the way to 20 KB at full phone resolution produces the blocky, smeared image everyone recognises from cheap compressors, and it fails a human reviewer even when it passes the automated size check.
Three things it deliberately will not do
It will not re-encode a file that already fits. Drop in a 30 KB photo with a 50 KB target and you get your original back, byte for byte. Re-compressing something that already passes costs quality and buys nothing.
It will not flatten transparency without telling you. Auto compares JPEG and WebP and takes whichever is smaller — except where the image has transparent areas, in which case it keeps a format that can hold them rather than silently painting them white.
It will not claim a target it missed. Where the number genuinely cannot be reached, the result says so and shows what it did reach. A tool that quietly hands back 52 KB against a 50 KB cap has not saved you a step; it has moved the failure to the upload form.
Which format to pick
Leave it on Auto unless the form is specific. Auto weighs JPEG against WebP and keeps the smaller result, and WebP is often meaningfully smaller at the same visible quality. Force JPEG when the portal only accepts JPG — many government and exam systems still do, and a WebP named .jpg will be rejected because validators read the file's own signature rather than its name.
PNG is the one to reconsider. It is lossless, so there is very little room to compress a photograph; converting to JPEG will shrink it far more. Keep PNG for signatures, screenshots and line art, where JPEG leaves visible fuzz around sharp edges.
Common KB targets
Jump to a pre-set limit, or enter any custom KB value in the tool above. Each page opens the same compressor with that target selected.
Seeing an upload error message? Fix file size exceeds the maximum limit or input image exceeds pixel limit.
Frequently asked questions
- How does exact KB compression work?
- ExactPic searches JPEG or WebP quality to get as close as possible to your target size without going over. If quality alone cannot reach a small target, it reduces the pixel dimensions instead of pushing quality below the point where the picture still measurably matches the original — so the result stays as sharp as the target allows. When even the smallest sensible size cannot fit, it says so on the result rather than quietly going lower.
- Are my images uploaded?
- No. Compression runs locally using the Canvas API in your browser. Your file never leaves your device.
- Which format should I choose?
- Auto compares JPEG and WebP and takes whichever is smaller at the same quality — except in two cases. If your file already fits the target, it is returned byte for byte rather than re-encoded, because re-encoding an image that already fits only costs quality. And if the image has transparent areas, Auto keeps a format that can hold them instead of flattening them onto white. Choose JPEG if the upload portal only accepts JPG, which many government and exam forms do.
- My form says "file size exceeds the maximum limit" — can this help?
- Yes. Enter your form's KB cap and compress here. For a guided checker with troubleshooting, use the fix file size exceeds limit task page.
- Will compressing ruin the picture?
- Not at ordinary targets. Going from a four-megabyte phone photo to 200 KB is usually invisible at normal viewing size, because most of those megabytes are detail no screen and no reviewer will ever resolve. It becomes visible when the target is very small relative to the dimensions — 20 KB at full phone resolution has roughly one bit per twenty pixels to work with, and no encoder can hide that.
- Can I compress several images at once?
- Yes. Add multiple files and they are all compressed to the same target, then downloaded together as a ZIP. Each one is measured individually, so a small image that already fits is passed through untouched rather than being padded or degraded to match the others.
- Why is my PNG barely getting smaller?
- PNG is lossless — it cannot trade detail for size the way JPEG does, so there is far less room to move. For a photograph, converting to JPEG will shrink it dramatically. Keep PNG only when the image has transparency or is line art and text, where JPEG would leave visible fuzz around the edges.
- The result is smaller than my target — is that wasted?
- Slightly, and deliberately so. The search stops at the last setting that fits rather than sitting exactly on the boundary, because some portals measure in binary kilobytes and others in decimal, and a file at 100.0 KB can be rejected by a form that means 1024 bytes to the kilobyte. Landing just under is the safer place to stop.
- What if the target is impossible?
- You are told, with the size it actually reached. Quality is lowered only to a floor measured on your specific image; past that the dimensions come down instead, because a smaller sharp photo beats a full-size blocky one. If even that cannot reach the number, the result says so rather than handing you a file that will be rejected.
- Does it strip the location data from my photo?
- Re-encoding does remove EXIF, including GPS, as a side effect. But if privacy is the goal rather than a side effect, use the metadata remover — it shows you exactly what was embedded before removing it, and keeps the image upright when it does.