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Byte budget · 50 KB ceiling
Reduce an image to under 50 KB
Fifty kilobytes is the most common hard limit on upload forms, and the awkward thing about it is that many of those forms also insist you keep the original pixel dimensions. This tool can do either: shrink the picture, or hold the dimensions and spend the whole budget on quality.
Result
Quality first, or dimensions first?
Every lossy image format trades detail for bytes, and there are only two things you can give up: how many pixels there are, and how precisely each one is described. Which one to sacrifice depends entirely on what happens to the image afterwards.
If the file is going into a document, a form field or an ID card slot, the pixel dimensions usually matter and you should tick keep the exact original dimensions. The tool will then search for the highest JPEG quality that still fits in 50 KB. If the source is a 12 megapixel phone photo, be warned: holding that many pixels inside 50 KB will look rough, and the tool will tell you so rather than pretending otherwise.
If the image is going onto a web page, an email or a chat message, nobody is measuring pixels. Cap the longest edge at something sensible — 1200 px covers most uses — and the same 50 KB will look dramatically better.
How to use it
- Drop in a JPG, PNG or WebP file. Screenshots and scans are fine.
- Set the ceiling. It defaults to 50, but the field takes any number.
- Decide whether dimensions are allowed to change, then press Compress.
- Check the readout. It reports the final size, the dimensions and the quality value that was used, so you can judge whether to give it more room.
A note on PNG
PNG is lossless, which means it has no quality dial to turn. A PNG cannot be compressed to an arbitrary target size the way a JPEG can. This tool converts PNG input to JPEG on the way out, because that is the only way to hit a byte target reliably. If your image needs a transparent background, JPEG will fill it with white — in that case keep the PNG and reduce its dimensions instead, using resize in pixels.
Common questions
Does this change my image dimensions?
Only if you let it. Leave the longest edge field empty and tick the lock checkbox and the pixel dimensions come out identical to the original. Untick it and the tool is free to scale the image down when quality alone cannot reach the target.
Why did my file come out at 47 KB instead of exactly 50?
JPEG quality is a coarse dial, not a byte counter. The encoder is given a quality value between 0 and 1 and produces whatever size it produces. The tool runs a binary search over that dial, so it lands as close under your ceiling as the format allows, usually within a few percent. Under is what matters for an upload limit.
The form wants between 20 KB and 50 KB and my result is 12 KB.
Raise the ceiling and rerun, or if it is already as large as the format will go, pad it with the increase image size tool. That adds inert bytes to the file container without altering the picture.
Is the metadata kept?
No. Re-encoding through a canvas discards Exif, GPS coordinates and colour profiles, which also saves you a few kilobytes. If you want to strip metadata but keep the original compression untouched, use remove image metadata instead.
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