Compress an image to under 50KB
Bring a photo under 50KB without uploading it. Enough room for a recognisable photograph, if you accept a smaller set of dimensions.
KB here means 1,000 bytes, so a file under the number you set is under it whichever convention the form on the other end uses.
Drop JPG, PNG, WebP, HEIC, AVIF, GIF, BMP files here or paste from the clipboard.
Your files are processed on this device. Nothing is uploaded.
Where this limit comes from
Fifty kilobytes is the common ceiling on job application portals, university and exam registration systems and older content management systems that were configured once and never touched again. It also turns up as the per-image budget in email templates, where a dozen images at 50KB each is about as much as a mail client will tolerate before it starts clipping the message.
What fits in 50 KB
A recognisable photograph, at a size suited to being viewed rather than inspected. Fifty thousand bytes typically buys 700 to 900 pixels on the long edge for a photo with normal detail or a good deal more for something with large flat areas such as a screenshot or a product shot on a white background. Text in the image starts to survive at this size, which it doesn’t at 20KB.
The format decision matters more here than the quality
At 50KB you’re close to the boundary where the choice of format changes the answer. The same image as JPG and as WebP can differ by a third and a third is the difference between keeping your dimensions and having to cut them.
The rule of thumb: photographs to JPG if compatibility matters and WebP if it doesn’t and anything with text, flat colour or transparency to WebP or PNG regardless.
Crop before you shrink
A photograph that’ll be displayed small doesn’t need the empty space around the subject. Cropping removes pixels that were going to be spent regardless, so it buys quality everywhere else in the image. This is the lever that costs nothing and it is the one people skip.
If the target comes from a form
Application systems that cap at 50KB usually specify dimensions too. Set the width cap in the tool as well, so both constraints are satisfied in one pass rather than discovering the second one after the upload fails.
Common questions
Will a passport-style photo survive 50KB?
Comfortably. A head-and-shoulders photo on a plain background is close to the ideal case for compression: the background is uniform, the detail is concentrated in one area and the image doesn’t need to be large. Expect it to stay well above the dimensions most application forms ask for.
Why did my screenshot come out bigger than my photo?
It usually comes out smaller, but if it contains a lot of text on a light background and it was saved as JPG, compression fights the sharp edges and inflates the file. Save screenshots as PNG or WebP instead. The tool's format selector lets you switch and WebP is normally dramatically smaller for this kind of image.
How do I get 50KB without losing the dimensions?
Set the format to WebP. It is meaningfully more efficient than JPG at the same visual quality, so it often reaches the target at the original dimensions where JPG would have to shrink them. The catch is compatibility: check that whatever you’re uploading to accepts WebP first.
Does the tool tell me if it can’t get there?
Yes. Rather than silently handing back a file over the limit, it reports the smallest version it could produce without destroying the image, along with the dimensions and quality it settled on, so you can decide whether to crop or change format.
Guides
Compress to a specific size
Each of these opens the tool with the target already set.