Compress an image to 500 KB
500 KB is preset. Read the size on the input card first: a file that is already under the limit should be sent as it is, not compressed again.
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The benefits portal takes a photo of your insurance card only under 500 KB. The expense app bounces a 3.8 MB receipt shot. An adjuster wants the damage photos emailed at half a megabyte each. Those are the 500 KB situations: a ceiling wide enough for a sharp, full-color picture, and one a phone camera still misses. Apple's own figures put a 12 MP iPhone photo at 2 to 2.5 MB once you do the division, four to five times the limit.
Read the size before you compress. Drop the file here and its input card prints it. Already under 500 KB? Attach the original. A compressor cannot add sharpness the file never had, and on this page a file with room to spare can come back heavier, for a reason explained below.
If it is over, the preset aims at 512,000 bytes — 500 × 1,024, the way this page counts a kilobyte — and searches for the highest JPG quality, from 50 up, that still fits. When one fits, every pixel is kept; when none does, the page shrinks the photo 15% at a time. In a test of ours with a 12-megapixel photo (4000 × 3000, 2.43 MB) in September 2026, one step was enough: 3400 × 2550.
How it works
Three steps, and the first one may be the only one you need.
Read the size on the card
Choose, drag, or paste (Ctrl+V on desktop) one photo or the whole set: JPG, PNG, WebP, or HEIC straight from an iPhone. Every input card shows the current file size. If it already reads under 500 KB, stop here and attach the original.
Leave the target at 500 KB
The settings panel opens on JPG with the 500 KB target already applied; the quality is picked by the search, not by you. Touch Max width (px) only when the portal also states a pixel limit, and change the format to PNG or WebP only if it is on the accepted list.
Generate, check the tag, download
Hit Generate images. Each result card lists the size before and after, the change in percent, the output dimensions, and a target met or smallest possible tag; the Compare button lays a slider over the original. Save each file on its own or every result as one .zip.
How a phone photo gets under 500 KB
For JPG output the page binary-searches the quality setting between 50 and 96 and keeps the highest quality that lands at or under 512,000 bytes, with no resizing. Where it stops depends on the picture: plain backgrounds cost fewer bytes than busy scenes, and Compare shows what the result looks like.
If even quality 50 overshoots, the page shrinks the image 15% per step, up to sixteen steps, and runs the same search at each size. A PNG, which has no quality dial, goes to that stage directly. As a last resort, at the smallest size, a quality between 5 and 50 is accepted; if nothing fits, the card says smallest possible instead of target met, and you still get the file. The stages are explained in how to reduce image file size.
What to expect, by input
That first row is why you check the size first: an input with room to spare can return heavier, with a + percentage on the card, no sharper — the original was fine.
| What you drop in | What the page does | Tag on the card |
|---|---|---|
| Photo already under 500 KB | Re-encoded at the highest quality that fits; can end up larger | target met, plus a + percentage |
| JPG or HEIC over 500 KB | Quality search from 50 to 96; every pixel kept if one fits | target met |
| Same, when quality 50 does not fit | 15% downscale steps, with the search repeated at each size | target met, with an arrow on the dimension tag |
| PNG output | No quality dial, so straight to 15% steps | target met, with an arrow on the dimension tag |
Email: what 500 KB apiece adds up to
Gmail, Outlook.com and Yahoo Mail put the ceiling at 25 MB and iCloud Mail at 20 MB, according to each service's help pages as of September 2026; on a work or school Gmail account the administrator sets the limit. At 500 KB apiece, twenty photos add up to about 10 MB and forty to about 20 MB.
Drop the whole set in at once; each file gets its own 512,000-byte search. Download all (.zip) makes one attachment, but the .zip is a container, not a second round of compression: add up the sizes on the cards before sending. The guide send photos without losing quality compares the channels.
Photographed documents: guard the width, not the quality
Legibility of a photographed page comes from how many pixels cross each line of text, not from the JPG quality. Across a letter-size sheet, 8.5 inches wide, 2,000 px is about 235 pixels per inch and 1,000 px about 118. In the test quoted above the 500 KB target took one 15% step, to 3400 px wide; the dimension tag on the card tells you what happened to yours.
Set Max width (px) only if the portal names a pixel limit too; for text, our suggestion is not to go below 1,600 px. If it wants a PDF, compress here first, then make a one-page PDF on the JPG to PDF page; that page re-encodes at its own quality slider, so lower it and read the size on the card until it fits under the cap.
Frequently asked questions
My photo is 420 KB. Should I still run it through this page?
No. The search picks the highest quality that fits under 512,000 bytes, so a file with room to spare can come out larger, and the card then shows a + percentage instead of a saving. Attach the original.
The form says 500 KB but rejected a file tagged target met. Why?
This page targets 512,000 bytes. Some systems count a kilobyte as 1,000 bytes and enforce 500,000, so a result at 508,000 bytes fails there. Use the 300 KB page, or the general compressor, where you set the quality yourself and read the exact size on the card.
Will a photographed document still be readable at 500 KB?
Yes, as long as the width stays. Downscaling happens when quality 50 does not fit at full size, and the dimension tag on the card shows whether it did; legibility comes from pixels, not from the quality number. If you do set Max width (px), our suggestion is 1,600 or more for text, and a look at the smallest print in Compare.
How many pixels should a 500 KB photo have?
As many as the source has, if the file must keep its detail and a quality of 50 or more fits. If it will only ever be viewed on a screen, type 2000 in Max width (px): for a 12 MP photo, the same 512,000 bytes then cover a quarter of the pixels.
Can I drop in HEIC files straight from an iPhone?
Yes. On the first HEIC the browser fetches a decoder of about 1 MB; after that, HEIC is decoded on your own device and the preset writes a JPG. The photo itself is never sent anywhere.
Can I get a PNG under 500 KB here?
Only by shrinking it. PNG has no quality setting, so the page skips the quality search and reduces the dimensions in 15% steps until the file fits. For a photo, stay on JPG; keep PNG for a screenshot or graphic where smaller dimensions are acceptable.
Is 500 KB in WebP better than 500 KB in JPG?
Same byte budget, and in Google's own study WebP needed 25% to 34% fewer bytes than JPEG for the same SSIM index, so the search can stop at a higher quality. For a portal, though, keep JPG unless the accepted-formats list names WebP: a rejected format costs another round trip.
Do I compress each photo separately for an email batch?
No. Drop them all in and generate once; each file is searched to 512,000 bytes on its own. Then save them one by one or as a .zip, remembering that the .zip is a container and not a second round of compression.