Compress Image to 100 KB

Private: the search runs on your device, nothing is uploaded

Drop images here, or click to choose them As many as you like at once, each brought under the same limit. You can also paste a screenshot straight onto this page. Up to 25 MB each.

Must be under

Unit

Shrink pixels if needed

Type the size limit you have to meet, for example 100 KB, then drop an image in.

The limit is already set to 100 KB, so drop your photo in and it comes back under it. The page tries several quality settings and keeps the best one that still fits, rather than making the file as small as it can and leaving you with a worse photo than the form would have accepted.

About the 100 KB limit

100 KB is the most widely used photo limit on the web: government portals, university applications, job boards and visa forms all converge on it. It is also the most forgiving of the common limits. At the dimensions these forms ask for, a few hundred pixels across, 100 KB is enough for a photo that looks like the original rather than a compressed copy of it.

There is one trap worth knowing, and it is the reason a file this page calls 100 KB is occasionally still refused. A kilobyte is 1024 bytes to your operating system and to this page, so 100 KB means 102,400 bytes. Some upload validators count in round thousands, so their 100 KB means 100,000. If a portal rejects a file that looks correct, set the limit to 97 instead and it will pass either definition.

The other thing that happens here is invisible and usually welcome. Reaching a target size means decoding your photo and encoding a new one from the pixels, which leaves the EXIF block behind: the GPS coordinates of where the picture was taken, the camera or phone model and the original timestamp are not in the file you download. For a photo that is about to be filed against your name, that is the right outcome. If you want to see what was in there first, EXIF Viewer and Remover reads it out before removing it.

If the form gives pixel dimensions as well as a KB limit, set those first with Resize Image, then bring the result here and untick Shrink pixels if needed so nothing touches the size you just set.

How to compress an image to 100 KB

Drop your photo on the box, click to choose it, or paste it onto the page. The limit is already 100 KB.
Leave the format on JPEG unless the portal specifically accepts WebP. Most do not.
Compare the two panes. The figures underneath give the exact result size, the quality it settled on and how many attempts it took.
If the portal counts a kilobyte as 1000 bytes, change the limit to 97 and run it again.
Press Download. Several photos at once come back as a single ZIP.

Common questions about compressing to 100 KB

Is 100 KB here 102,400 bytes or 100,000 bytes?

102,400, because this page treats 1 KB as 1024 bytes, which is what your operating system does when it reports a file size. Some upload forms count a kilobyte as 1000 bytes instead, so their 100 KB means 100,000. The gap is only 2,400 bytes but it is enough to be rejected. If a portal refuses a file this page says is 100 KB, set the limit to 97 and run it again: that is comfortably under both definitions.

Will a 100 KB photo look bad?

Not at the sizes portals ask for. A portrait at around 600 by 800 pixels fits under 100 KB at a quality most people cannot tell from the original on a screen, and that is larger than almost any form requires. 100 KB is a generous limit compared to the 20 KB and 50 KB ones, which is why it is the most common: the people who set it wanted a usable photo back.

Is it safe to compress an identity photo here?

The photo never leaves your device. It is read, re-encoded and measured by your browser, several times over, and every attempt is discarded locally. You can check that claim rather than believe it: open the network panel in your browser's developer tools before you drop the file in and watch that no request is made, or disconnect from the internet and use the page anyway. It works offline because there is nothing on the other end.

Does the GPS location in my photo survive?

No, and that is worth knowing. Compressing here draws the picture onto a canvas and encodes a fresh file from the pixels, so the EXIF block goes with it: the GPS coordinates, the camera model, the serial number and the timestamp are all absent from what you download. If stripping that data is the actual job rather than a side effect, EXIF Viewer and Remover shows you what a photo is carrying before it takes it out.

The portal still rejected my file. What else could be wrong?

Size is only one of the rules and it is the one that gets stated loudest. Check the extension, because a portal that wants .jpg will refuse .jpeg on some older systems; check the pixel dimensions, which are often specified separately and are not what this page changes unless it had to; and check for a minimum size, since a number of forms reject anything under 10 or 20 KB as well.

Related tools

All Image tools

Compress Image to 50 KB Bring an exam or portal photo under the 50 KB it allows. Compress Image to 200 KB Fit a photo or a document scan under 200 KB, text still readable. Compress Image to Size Hit an exact file size limit, like under 100 KB for a form. EXIF Viewer and Remover See the camera, date and GPS hidden in a photo, and strip it out.