Compress Video

Re-encodes the video with H.264 at a lower bitrate. For an MP4 the encoder built into your browser does it: a 30-second 720p clip took 2.1 seconds on the machine we tested on, and an eight-minute 1080p recording of 2.2 GB took 38 seconds. Other formats go through a downloaded engine instead, which takes roughly two minutes for every minute of 1080p. Either way the work happens on your own machine, so there is no upload, no queue and no cap on how large the file may be.

  • No upload
  • No account
  • No watermark
  • No file limit
Drop your files hereor click to chooseNo size limit and no count limit — only what your own computer can hold.An MP4 is handled by the video encoder built into your browser, with nothing to download and no size ceiling. Other formats fetch a 10 MB engine the first time. Either way your file is not uploaded.

Your files

    Nothing chosen yet.

    Where your file goes

    Nowhere. This page downloads a small program into your browser, and that program reads the file straight from your disk. The program comes from this site like any image or stylesheet — but your file only ever travels from your disk into your own browser tab.

    Why this one

    What you get that the big converters cannot offer.

    It tells you the cost before you start

    An MP4 goes through your browser's own encoder: a 30-second 720p clip took 2.1 seconds and came back at 6.4 MB from 10.4 MB. Other formats go through the downloaded engine, which took 29 seconds on that same clip and about two minutes for every minute of 1080p. Sites that compress on a server rarely tell you anything up front.

    You can go and do something else

    Switching tabs does not slow it down. Measured on a job that ran through the engine: 113 seconds hidden, 115 seconds in the foreground.

    No size cap and no watermark

    Server-side compressors cap file size and often stamp the output, because every megabyte they receive costs them money. None of that applies when the work happens on your machine.

    Strong also lowers the resolution

    At the strongest setting the long edge is brought down to 1280 pixels. Past a certain point, bitrate alone cannot make a 4K file small, and pretending otherwise just gives you a blocky 4K video.

    How to use it

    Choose a video file.

    Pick light, balanced or strong.

    Press Start and leave it running. The progress figure is the position in the video, not a guess.

    When people use it

    A file too large to send

    Mail servers and chat apps refuse large attachments, and a phone video clears that line in about a minute of recording.

    Freeing up space

    Phone footage is recorded at a generous bitrate. Half the size is usually indistinguishable on a phone screen.

    Footage you would rather not hand over

    Family video, site inspections, anything with faces or documents in it. Uploading it to a compressor means giving somebody else a copy.

    Questions

    How long will it take?

    For an MP4, seconds rather than minutes: 2.1 seconds for a 30-second 720p clip and 38 seconds for an eight-minute 1080p recording on a current laptop. Other formats go through the downloaded engine, which takes about twice the length of the video for 1080p. An older machine is slower either way.

    Why is an upload-based compressor faster?

    For an MP4 it is not: your browser's own encoder is backed by the chip in your machine and did a 30-second clip in 2.1 seconds here. For the other formats the engine runs on one core of your machine while a server has many. What you get in return is no upload, no size cap, no watermark and no copy of your video on anyone else's disk.

    How much smaller will the file be?

    Around 60% smaller on the balanced setting for typical camera footage. Material that is already heavily compressed will shrink less — there is not much left to remove.

    Can I compress several videos at once?

    You can queue them and they run one after another. They do not run in parallel, because each one is already using the processor as hard as it can.

    What happens if the file is too big for my browser?

    An MP4 is read a few frames at a time, so size is not really the question — we compressed a 2.2 GB recording here. Other formats have to be held in memory all at once, and no browser can read past about 2 GB in one piece; you get a message saying so and the page stays usable.

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