Compress an image to 20KB
For the strictest upload forms — done on your device.
- Step 1Drop your imagesAnywhere on the page
- Step 2Set target 20 KBAlready selected for you
- Step 3Download the resultOne file or a zip
A 20KB ceiling is the tightest limit you are likely to meet, and it almost always comes from a government or university portal built years ago on a fixed per-record storage budget. SSC, UPSC and state recruitment boards commonly specify it for the passport photograph field, sometimes alongside a pixel range like 200×230.
Portrait photographs survive this better than documents. Faces are mostly smooth gradients, which JPEG stores efficiently. A scanned page of text at 20KB will show visible artefacts around the letterforms — if you are compressing a document, check whether the form accepts PDF, which handles text far better at small sizes.
Quality preserved
Quality first, pixels last
Twenty kilobytes is genuinely small, so something has to give. This tool searches for the highest JPEG quality that still fits, and only when no quality setting is small enough does it begin reducing the pixel dimensions. That order matters: a slightly softer photo at full size passes a manual review, whereas an aggressively shrunken one often fails the portal's minimum-dimension check instead.
Get more from the budget
If the result comes out noticeably soft, crop tighter before compressing. Removing background gives the encoder fewer pixels to describe, which buys real quality at the same file size.
Not sure it held up? Every result has a Compare button — drag the divider to see your original against the processed version at full size.
Common questions
Why does my photo look blurry at 20KB?
Twenty kilobytes is a hard budget, and detail is what gets spent first. Cropping tightly to the subject before compressing helps a great deal, because the encoder then spends its entire budget on the part that matters rather than on background.
Can I hit 20KB and still meet a minimum pixel size?
Often yes. Set a max dimension matching the portal's requirement, and quality will be reduced instead of the image being scaled below it. If both constraints cannot be met at once, the tool tells you the smallest size it managed rather than silently handing back a larger file.
Does the file actually leave my device?
No. The compression runs in your browser using its built-in image encoder. There is no upload step and no server involved, which is also why it still works if your connection drops mid-way.
Which format should I choose for a portal upload?
JPG, unless the form explicitly asks for PNG. Most portals accept only JPG or JPEG, and PNG cannot reach 20KB for a photograph without severe downscaling because it is a lossless format.