Compress an image to 20KB

Twenty kilobytes is a hard limit, and it is small. Drop your file in and it comes out under the line — with an honest note about what had to give.

Files never leave your browser

Drop images here or click to choose — every file comes out under 20 KB

Who actually needs 20KB

Almost nobody chooses 20 KB. It is imposed, and nearly always by the same kind of system: a government examination portal, a scholarship application, a civil service registration form. Those forms usually want two separate uploads — a photograph and a signature — and the signature is the one capped hardest, often at 10 to 20 KB.

That split matters, because the two files behave completely differently at this size.

A signature at 20KB is easy. A face is not.

A signature is ink on white paper: large flat areas, few colours, sharp edges. That compresses extremely well. A signature scan will usually land under 20 KB while still looking clean, and if it does not, cropping away the white margin around it will do the rest.

A photograph is the opposite — every pixel differs from its neighbour, and there is nothing for the compressor to simplify. At 20 KB a portrait has to become physically smaller before it can fit. This tool does that automatically and tells you the size it ended up at, rather than silently handing back something blurred.

If the form accepts it, upload the photograph at whatever larger limit it allows and save the 20 KB budget for the signature.

Before you compress, crop

At this size, cropping is worth more than any compression setting. Empty background carries the same cost per pixel as the face does. Trimming a scan down to just the signature, or a portrait down to head and shoulders, frees up a large share of the budget for the part that matters.

You can do that here first with the crop tool, then come back.

Landing just under, not far under

Ask most tools for 20 KB and they hand back something far smaller. That looks like success and is really waste — every unused kilobyte was quality given away for nothing. This searches for the highest quality that still fits. Measured across 28 runs — the seven size limits on this site against four different pictures — nothing came back over the limit, and the results filled 96% of the budget on average.

Nothing is uploaded at any point — the work happens on your own device, which is also why there is no daily limit and no watermark. How that works, and how to check it yourself.

Other size limits

Set any other limit on the main compress page, or read how upload size limits actually work.