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Video Compressor

Fit an MP4 or MOV under the size you need — 16 MB for WhatsApp, 25 MB for email, or any number — with the sound kept and phone videos upright. Runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded.

Drop videos here, or choose

MP4 & MOV (H.264 or HEVC, AAC audio) · from a phone, camera or screen recording

Settings

16 MB is what WhatsApp accepts for a video message; longer videos may need a lower resolution to fit. The sound is copied, not re-encoded.

The video is encoded to land just under this size. Leave blank to use the quality below instead.

Used when there is no target size. Medium is about 3.7 Mbps at 1080p30, roughly a third of a phone recording.

Longest edge. Smaller videos are never upscaled. 720p is plenty for a phone screen and halves the bitrate needed.

60 fps phone video spends bits on frames nobody sees in a chat. 30 fps is the usual cap.

AAC audio is copied as is. Untick for silent videos or to save a little more space.

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How this video compressor works

Video sites either upload your file to a server and make you wait in a queue, or cap the free tier at a few hundred megabytes. This one uses the video hardware already in your laptop or phone, through the browser's WebCodecs API, so there is no upload, no queue and no limit.

1

Reads the file in slices

The MP4 is parsed a few megabytes at a time, so a 2 GB recording never has to fit in memory. The tool notes the resolution, frame rate, audio track and the rotation flag phones set on portrait video.

2

Re-encodes to a size you choose

Bitrate is worked out from your target: size divided by duration, minus the audio, minus a margin. Frames go through your device's H.264 encoder, optionally scaled to 720p or 1080p and capped at 30 fps. If the result misses the target by more than a couple of percent, it runs a second pass at a corrected bitrate.

3

Copies the sound, keeps the rotation

AAC audio is copied sample for sample, so it loses nothing and costs no time. The rotation flag is written into the new file, and the header goes at the front so the video starts playing while it downloads.

100% private. The video is decoded and re-encoded on your own device. It is never uploaded to a server, ours or anyone else's, and there is nothing to delete afterwards.

Compress video for WhatsApp

WhatsApp accepts a video message of up to 16 MB, per Meta's WhatsApp media reference, and re-compresses what you send. The WhatsApp preset fits your video under that limit at 720p and 30 fps, which is what the chat shows anyway, with the sound intact. Anything longer than a few minutes will look soft at 16 MB; for those, send the file as a document, which WhatsApp does not compress. We measured what WhatsApp does to photos in does WhatsApp compress photos.

Frequently asked questions

Is the video uploaded anywhere?

No. The file is read in slices on your device, decoded and re-encoded by your browser's own video hardware, and written back as a new MP4. Nothing leaves your computer or phone, which is also why there is no file-size limit and no queue.

How do I compress a video for WhatsApp?

Pick the WhatsApp preset. It fits the video under 16 MB, the size Meta's WhatsApp API accepts for a video message, at up to 720p and 30 frames per second, with the audio kept. If a long video cannot fit at a watchable quality, send it as a document instead, which WhatsApp does not compress.

Does it lose quality?

Re-encoding video is always lossy, and the bitrate is chosen to hit the size you asked for, so a very small target on a long video will look soft. The audio is copied without re-encoding, so it loses nothing. Keep your original; this tool never modifies it.

Which files and browsers work?

MP4 and MOV files with H.264 or HEVC video and AAC audio, which is what phones and cameras produce. It needs WebCodecs: Chrome, Edge, Safari 16.4 or later, and Firefox 130 or later. Videos with other audio codecs are compressed without sound and the page says so.

Will an iPhone portrait video stay upright?

Yes. iPhones store portrait video sideways with a rotation flag, and the tool copies that flag into the new file, so it plays upright everywhere the original did.

More free photo tools

Shrinking the photos too? The photo compressor handles a whole folder with a size target. Rescue a shaky clip's stills with the unblur tool, or convert iPhone shots with the HEIC to JPG converter.