Email · CMS · generous caps
Compress an image to 500 KB.
At 500 KB the question changes from “how small?” to “which format?”. Email attachments, CMS avatars and tender portals live here — and format choice usually beats another compression pass.
- 100% client-side
- Nothing is uploaded
- No account
- Canvas / WebAssembly on your device
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Format beats compression at 500 KB
| Content | Best choice at this cap |
|---|---|
| Photograph for the web | WebP — 40–60% of the JPEG bytes at equal quality |
| Photograph where WebP is not accepted | JPEG, quality ≈ 80 |
| Flat graphics, logos, screenshots | PNG, or lossless WebP for sharper glyphs |
| Anything headed for print | JPEG quality 90+, or keep the original |
Expert trap: compressing something already fine
A 480 KB camera JPEG re-encoded to 450 KB gains you nothing and loses a generation. Verify the real size first — the fix at this cap is usually dimensions or format, not quality.
When 500 KB is still tight
Multi-page scans do not belong in an image at all — use the PDF pages. And a 12 MP export should be resized to display dimensions before any quality search runs.
Frequently asked questions
WebP or JPEG at 500 KB?
WebP whenever the destination renders it — websites, modern CMS, email clients like Gmail. JPEG when a form validator or an older client is involved.
Does 500 KB keep print quality?
For A5 and smaller, yes. A4 print wants quality 90+ or a PDF; do not spend print detail on an upload cap.
What is a good email attachment size?
≤ 500 KB per image keeps most inboxes rendering inline and stays far below provider limits; the exact byte count is shown before you download.
Should I resize instead of compress at this cap?
For 12 MP camera shots, yes: downscale to the display size first (1600–2000 px long edge), then run a light quality search. Dimensions do the heavy lifting.
Is anything uploaded while I work?
No. Decoding, resizing and re-encoding all happen in this tab; you can disconnect the network after the page loads.