Как сжать изображение до 1 MB

To compress an image to 1 MB, save it as a JPG at around 75-80% quality with the free image compressor. If it's still over, resize it to about 2,400 pixels on the long side with the free image resizer and compress again. For a 2 MB limit, the quality step alone is often enough, even at full size. The compressor shows each new size before you download, works on up to 20 photos at once, and never uploads your files.

1 MB and 2 MB caps are the "generous" limits: job portals asking for a photo or ID scan, rental and housing sites, bank and KYC uploads, school and college portals, insurance claims and many government services. They're big enough that you keep plenty of detail, which is good, because people often print or zoom these images.

Compress to 1 MB: try quality first

With a 1-2 MB limit, you may not need to resize at all. Phone cameras save photos at very high quality, and a modest quality reduction alone often brings them down a lot.

1. Open the free image compressor and drop in your photo.
2. Under Save as, choose JPG (or Same format if it's already a JPG).
3. Set Quality to 80% and click Compress image.
4. Read the result under the file name, for example "4.2 MB → 1.6 MB (62% smaller)".

What happens next depends on your limit:

Your limit	If the result is under it	If it's still over
2 MB	Download it; you're done	Try 70%; if still over, resize to about 3,000 px
1 MB	Download it	Resize to about 2,400 px, then compress at 80%

Full-resolution phone photos vary a lot: a plain wall or sky compresses easily, while a garden, crowd or patterned fabric stays large. That's why the table says "try" rather than promising a number.

One exception: photos from a 48 or 50 megapixel camera mode are too large for the compressor to open in a browser (it says "That's too large for this device"; the cap is about 16.7 megapixels). Resize those first, as below.

When you need to resize: the one-pass settings

If quality alone doesn't get you under 1 MB, cut the pixels. Open the free image resizer, choose Pixels, keep Lock proportions ticked and set the long side:

Long side	Typical JPG size at 80%	Use for
2,000 px	375-625 KB	Comfortably under 1 MB
2,400 px	540-900 KB	A safe one-pass target for 1 MB
2,800 px	0.7-1.2 MB	Only if you need extra detail; check the size
Full size (about 4,000 px)	1.5-2.5 MB	Often fits 2 MB at 70-80%

These are typical for 12-megapixel phone photos. Click Resize image, then compress the result at 80%. On a phone or laptop screen, a 2,400-pixel photo looks the same as the original, and it still prints sharply at postcard size.

Note that the resizer itself saves at high quality, so its output is often bigger than you'd expect. That's why the compress step comes after.

Read "1.0 MB" with care

The compressor shows megabytes with one decimal place, counting 1 MB as 1,048,576 bytes. A file shown as 1.0 MB could be anywhere up to about 1.05 MB, and some sites count 1 MB as 1,000,000 bytes (about 977 KB). Either way, "1.0 MB" might be rejected.

Aim for 900 KB or less for a 1 MB limit, and 1.8-1.9 MB or less for 2 MB. You can confirm the exact byte count after downloading: Properties on Windows, Get Info (Cmd+I) on a Mac.

Documents and scans

For ID cards, certificates and scanned pages, the goal is readable text, not just a size:

• Choose JPG under Save as, even if the scan was a PNG. A PNG scan can easily be several MB.
• Keep the quality at 80-85% so small print stays crisp.
• If you're still over, resize to about 2,000 px wide; an A4 page at that width is easy to read.

If the portal wants a PDF rather than an image, make it after compressing with the free JPG to PDF converter: smaller images make a smaller PDF.

Several photos for one application

The compressor takes up to 20 images at once with one quality setting. Drop them all in, click Compress 3 images (the button counts them), check each size in the list, then Download all (ZIP). If one is still over 1 MB, compress it on its own at a lower quality or resize it.

If the form wants a minimum size

For a range such as 500 KB-1 MB, a photo that comes out too small needs more pixels, not more quality: resize the original to a larger long side (try 2,400-2,800 px) and check the size. The compressor never returns a file bigger than the one you dropped in.

Don't go too far

With 1-2 MB to play with, there's no reason to crush a photo. Quality below about 60% can show blotchy skies and smeared detail, and portals that zoom into ID scans need the detail. If you're hitting the limit at 60%, resize instead.

If you need much smaller files, see our guides to compressing an image to 500 KB and to 200 KB. For the difference between file size and pixel size, read image KB vs pixels. PDFs over the limit? See compressing a PDF to 1 MB.

The quick way

Open the free image compressor, choose JPG at 80% and check the size. Still over 1 MB? Resize to 2,400 px and compress again. Aim for 900 KB to be safe. It's free and your photos stay on your device.