Compress an image for email
Keep attachments small enough to send and receive without trouble.
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How it works
Add your images
Drag and drop, paste, or pick files. They upload over an encrypted connection.
Pick a quality or a target size
Use the quality slider, or tell it exactly how many KB or MB you need.
Download
Save each file, or grab them all at once as a ZIP.
Most email providers allow several megabytes per attachment, but large photos straight from a modern phone or camera can still be slow to attach, slow to send on a poor connection, and sometimes get silently resized or stripped by the recipient's provider. Compressing to around 1 MB per photo keeps things fast and predictable on both ends.
If you're sending several photos in one email, compress them all here first, then use "Download all (ZIP)" to get a single file to attach rather than many separate ones, which is both tidier and often more reliable across different email providers.
Your photos are uploaded over an encrypted connection and processed on our own servers in the EU, and nothing is kept there afterward: results are deleted automatically within one hour. If a recipient reports a blank or broken attachment, it's often their provider rejecting an unusually large file rather than anything wrong with the compressed photo itself.
Why an attachment weighs more in the mail than on your disk
Email was designed to carry text. To send a photo, the mail program rewrites its bytes as letters and digits, a scheme called Base64, and that rewrite makes every attachment about a third larger. A 3 MB photo uses roughly 4 MB of the message. With a limit of 25 MB per message, a common figure, the real room for attachments is closer to 18 MB. That is why a set of photos that adds up to less than the limit can still bounce.
The limit that counts is also the lowest one on the route. Your provider may allow a large message while the recipient's company server stops at 10 MB.
Sizes that work for photos people only look at
A photo that will be viewed on a phone or a laptop does not need camera resolution. Set Resize to about 1600 pixels on the long side and a typical picture lands between 200 and 400 KB, sharp on any screen, so ten of them travel in one message with room to spare.
For pictures placed inside the body of a newsletter the numbers are smaller. Email layouts are usually around 600 pixels wide, so 1200 pixels covers high-density screens and 150 KB is a reasonable ceiling per image. Stay with JPEG and PNG there. Several mail programs, older Windows versions of Outlook among them, do not display WebP or AVIF.
When you should not compress
If the recipient is going to print the photos large, retouch them or archive them, send the originals. A compressed copy is made for looking at, and the fine detail it gives up is exactly what a retoucher or a print lab wants. Email is the wrong vehicle for that job anyway: put the originals in a shared folder and mail the link, and use the compressed set as a preview in the message itself.
Frequently asked questions
What's a safe size for an email attachment?
Around 1 MB per photo is comfortable for most providers and connections; smaller is fine too.
Should I send photos as a ZIP or individually?
A ZIP is often tidier for several photos and avoids issues some providers have with many attachments.
Will compressing affect how the photos look?
At around 1 MB, usually not noticeably.
Can I compress many photos for one email at once?
Yes, up to 20 at a time on the free plan, 500 on Pro.
Can I email iPhone photos that are in HEIC format?
Add them here first. HEIC files come back as JPEG, which every mail program and webmail service shows without extra software.
Does the recipient need a program to open the ZIP?
No. Windows, macOS, Android and iOS all open ZIP files on their own. For one or two photos, separate attachments are friendlier, because they preview inside the message.