Compress an image to 200 KB
The editor above opens with a 200 KB ceiling. Drop in a photo or a scan and it tries quality settings until it has the best one that still fits, then tells you the exact size it reached, down to the byte. If the image is too large in pixels to get there, it says so and offers the dimensions that will.
200 KB is roomy for anything screen-sized and tight for a picture straight off a camera. Both cases are measured below.
200 KB at screen sizes
Our sample photograph is a detailed lakeside landscape, 1920 pixels wide — about the size of a photo prepared for a website. We ran the editor’s own Lanczos3 resize and size search on it at seven widths:
| Pixels | Megapixels | WebP quality | JPEG quality | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 400 × 267 | 0.11 | 100 | 100 | Lossless WebP; no visible loss |
| 600 × 400 | 0.24 | 99 | 99 | No visible loss |
| 800 × 533 | 0.43 | 98 | 96 | No visible loss |
| 1000 × 667 | 0.67 | 91 | 90 | No visible loss |
| 1200 × 800 | 0.96 | 84 | 82 | No visible loss |
| 1600 × 1067 | 1.71 | 61 | 57 | Clean, slightly soft |
| 1920 × 1280 | 2.46 | 36 | 34 | Blocky in fine detail |
Up to 1200 px the limit costs nothing you can see. At 1600 px it is still a good photograph. At the full 1920 it fits, but at a quality where the trees turn into blocks. For a detailed photo, 1600 px wide is the most 200 KB carries well; a portrait or a product on a plain background can keep more.
The first row is a curiosity worth knowing: at 400 px the whole image fits even at quality 100, which for WebP means lossless. The search noticed, and took it.
A photo straight from the camera
Things change at camera size. The original of our sample is 6720 × 4480, a 30-megapixel file from a full-frame camera. Opened in the editor at its own size it cannot reach 200 KB at all: the smallest WebP it makes is 277 KB, the smallest JPEG 212 KB.
So the editor offers a size. For WebP it suggested 2140 × 1427, and the search at that size settled on quality 53; for JPEG, 1840 × 1227 and quality 55. It reaches that by measuring the file it encoded at quality 50 during the search and scaling the pixel count to fit 80% of the limit — so the second search lands close to quality 50 rather than at the bottom of the range. Press the button, or type your own width; the search reruns either way.
Scanned documents and certificates
A 200 KB ceiling is common for identity documents, mark sheets and certificates, where the image is mostly text. Text behaves differently from a landscape:
- Width decides legibility. An A4 page scanned at 150 DPI is 1240 × 1754 pixels, enough for ordinary print to stay readable. Much below 1000 px wide, small type can start to blur together.
- Paper compresses well; shadows do not. A flat, evenly lit page costs far fewer bytes than a phone photo with a shadow across one corner. Crop away the table and the edges of the paper first.
- Check at 100%. Zoom the comparison in on the smallest text before you download. If it has gone fuzzy, a slightly narrower page at a higher quality usually reads better than a wide one at a low quality.
CropShrink opens images, not PDFs. For a multi-page document, save each page as an image and do them one at a time.
200 KB, or 200,000 bytes?
Here a kilobyte is 1,024 bytes, so the target allows files of up to 204,800 bytes, and the panel prints the exact count of each one. A form that counts in thousands stops at 200,000. Set the target to 195 — 199,680 bytes — and the file passes either way.
Questions about 200 KB limits
What resolution fits in 200 KB?
For a detailed photo, about 1600 px wide: our sample fits at quality 61 as WebP and stays clean. Up to 1200 px there is no visible loss at all. Simpler pictures can keep more pixels.
Why can’t my camera photo get under 200 KB?
Because even the lowest quality is too large at that many pixels. Our 30-megapixel sample never goes below 277 KB as WebP. The editor offers a width that fits; at that size it landed on quality 53.
Should a scanned document be JPEG or PNG?
JPEG, if it has to fit a size limit. PNG is lossless and cannot be aimed at a size, so the size control switches off when PNG is chosen. Keep the page at least 1000 px wide so the text stays sharp.
Does the image leave my computer?
No. Everything happens in your browser tab, including the search; nothing is uploaded to compress it. The privacy policy explains how to check.
Other limits
For tighter limits see 100 KB and 50 KB; for a looser one, 500 KB, measured at camera sizes. Or type any number into the size field above.
More image tools
Every one of these is the same editor, opened for a different job — and all of them run on your device.
- Compress an imageShrink a photo for the web, an email or an upload form.
- Compress to 500 KBKeep a camera photo full-screen sharp under 500 KB.
- Resize an imageChange the pixel dimensions with Lanczos3, Catmull-Rom or Mitchell.
- Crop an imageTrim to what matters, freeform or to a fixed ratio.
- Remove EXIF dataStrip the GPS location, camera and serial number from a photo.
Or start from the full editor, which does all of it at once.