Compress Video for WhatsApp
100% privateGet a video under 16 MB, the size every version of WhatsApp accepts. Compressed on this device, never uploaded.
Pick the limit you’re up against. The tool works out the best picture that fits under it — and tells you what that is before you press anything.
Advanced options
A smaller picture with enough detail looks better than a big one that has been starved of it. Auto makes that call for you and never makes a video bigger than it was.
Minutes and seconds, like 1:30. Half the length means twice the quality at the same size — the most effective trick there is.
Checking usage…
Step by step
How to compress a video for WhatsApp
WhatsApp — 16 MB is already selected, so this is drop, press and send.
Add your video
Drag it onto this page, or press Choose a video. A clip from your phone’s camera, a screen recording or a download all work. The length and resolution appear straight away.
Check what 16 MB buys
Under the limit, the page says what you will get, such as “about 720p, with sound”. If that is lower than you hoped, trim the clip under Advanced options: half the length gives twice the quality.
Press Compress
Your device’s own video encoder does the work, and the result is measured. If it came out even slightly over 16 MB, it is redone a little smaller, so you only ever get a file that fits.
Save it and send it
Play it on the page first, then save it with the green button and attach it in WhatsApp as a normal video.
Why 16 MB
The size every WhatsApp accepts
WhatsApp’s own help pages give different video limits. An older page says 16 MB for all media on every platform. A newer iPhone page describes up to 100 MB at 720p on a fast connection, or 64 MB at 480p on a slow one. A video under 16 MB fits all of them, on any phone and any version.
WhatsApp compresses too
Even when WhatsApp accepts a bigger file, it re-compresses the video itself before sending, and you don’t get to choose how. Arriving under 16 MB means you decide what is kept: the length, the resolution and whether there is sound.
Bigger than 16 MB?
If the video must stay long and sharp, attach it in WhatsApp as a Document instead of a video. WhatsApp sends documents without compressing them, up to 2 GB, but the person receiving it has to download it before it plays.
Long clips
Sixteen megabytes is roughly a minute or two of clean 720p. A ten-minute video squeezed into it will look soft, because each second gets a tenth of the data. Trim it to the part that matters, or split it into two messages.
Private by design
Why this compressor can’t leak your video
Think about what people actually shrink: a clip of their children, a screen recording with their bank app open, a video sent to a doctor or a lawyer. The video compressors that rank for this upload it to their servers first — one says plainly that videos sit there for 90 minutes afterwards. This one never sends it anywhere, and you can check that yourself.
Zero uploads
The tool is downloaded to your browser once. From then on it reads your video from your own storage and hands it to the video encoder built into your phone or computer. Your video never enters a network request, so there is no copy of it anywhere for us to keep, lose or be asked to hand over.
Nothing stored
The compressed copy lives only in this tab’s memory. Close the tab and it is gone — no upload queue, no server folder, no “deleted after 90 minutes” promise you have to take on trust.
No account
No sign-up, no email address, no daily limit, no file-size cap that a paid plan lifts, and no watermark stamped across your video.
To be precise about what does leave your device — because “100% private” is easy to say and worth checking. Two things, neither of them your video:
1. When a video finishes, this page sends one anonymous message to our counter saying “compress-video was used”. No video, no file name, no sizes, nothing identifying you. It exists so the usage number above is a real one rather than something we invented.
2. Google Analytics records the page view and that a video was compressed, the same as on every other page of this site. It is told which size limit and resolution you picked from the lists, and whether you removed the sound or trimmed it, as a yes or no — never anything about the video itself: not its name, its size, its length, its resolution or the trim times. You can block it and the tool works exactly the same.
Your video is in neither. It never enters a network request at all — and unlike a promise, that is something you can check. Turn off your wifi, reload this page and compress a video anyway. It still works. No upload-based compressor can pass that test.
At a glance
Tool specifications
| Input | MP4, MOV (iPhone), WebM and MKV files with H.264, HEVC, VP8, VP9 or AV1 video — whichever of those your browser can decode |
|---|---|
| Output | MP4 with H.264 video and AAC sound, the combination WhatsApp, Discord, Gmail, iPhones, Android phones and Windows all play |
| Size limits | WhatsApp 16 MB, Discord 20 MB, Email (Gmail) 18 MB, Discord Nitro Basic 50 MB, plain sizes from 8 to 200 MB, or any custom limit up to 2,000 MB |
| What “MB” means here | 1 MB = 1,000,000 bytes. Apps disagree on whether a megabyte is 1,000,000 or 1,048,576 bytes; the smaller definition keeps the file under the limit either way |
| How the limit is met | The bitrate is worked out from the clip’s length, the finished file is measured, and a file that came out over is redone a little smaller — up to three times. A file over the limit is never offered |
| Resolution | Auto picks the largest size that still looks clean at your limit, and never enlarges a video. Or choose 1080p, 720p, 480p or 360p yourself |
| Frame rate | Kept as recorded, except that 60 fps clips are brought down to 30 fps when the limit is tight |
| Sound | Copied unchanged when it costs little; otherwise re-encoded to AAC between 32 and 128 kbps. Or remove it |
| Already small enough? | An H.264 MP4 under the limit comes back untouched. An iPhone MOV under the limit is repackaged as an MP4 without re-encoding |
| Browsers | Chrome, Edge, Samsung Internet and Safari 16.4 or newer, on phones and computers; Firefox 130 or newer on a computer. Not Firefox for Android, which doesn’t include the encoder yet |
| iPhone HEVC videos | Open in Safari, and in Chrome on phones. On a computer it depends on whether the hardware decodes HEVC; Firefox can’t |
| Quality versus upload-based tools | Uses your device’s own video encoder, which needs somewhat more data than a server’s slow encoder for the same picture. A short clip looks the same; a long clip squeezed into a small limit looks softer than it would there |
| Maximum file size | 4 GB hard limit; a warning above 1 GB |
| Where processing happens | In your browser, on your device — nothing is uploaded |
| Works offline | Yes, once the page has loaded, including as an installed app |
| Sign-up | Not required, not offered |
| Watermark | None |
| Price | Free |
Questions
Compressing for WhatsApp, answered
Is my video uploaded anywhere?
What is WhatsApp’s video size limit?
Will the video look worse?
Can I compress a video on my phone?
Why won’t my iPhone video open?
How do I send a video bigger than 16 MB?
Keep it handy
Save it, share it, or tell us what’s missing
Come back to it
Bookmark the page, or pin it to your saved tools so it sits at the top of the tools list on this device.
Something not right?
If a video wouldn’t open, an app still rejected the result, or the limit you needed isn’t in the list, tell us. The form opens with the tool already filled in, so you only have to describe what happened.
More free tools
Other things you can do here
Every one of these runs the same way — on your device, with nothing uploaded.
This page is the Compress Video to an Exact Size, set up for one job. Others like it: HEIC to JPG · WebP to JPG · JPG to PDF · PDF to JPG · Compress PDF · Compress Image to 20 KB · Compress Image to 50 KB · Compress Image to 100 KB · Compress Video for Discord.