What this does
The photographs on a full disk are rarely there because anyone chose them. They accumulated — a phone that backs up automatically, a camera emptied twice a year, a folder called Import that nobody has opened since 2019. The size of the problem is measured in gigabytes and the individual files are not interesting.
So the shape of the work is a pass over a directory tree, not a session with an image. One rule, applied in order, with the folder structure carried through to the output so that what comes back is recognisably the same library and not a flat bag of four thousand files called IMG_ something.
Setting the rule
- Standard quality is the starting position for an archive. Strong is a reasonable choice for a folder you are keeping out of completeness rather than affection, and a poor one for the photographs you would miss.
- Capture information stays by default here. The date a photograph was taken is frequently the only thing that makes a 2013 folder navigable at all, and it costs a few kilobytes a file.
- The long edge cap is where the gigabytes actually are, and it is irreversible from the output. If you are going to use it on a library, use it on a copy first and look at the result on the largest screen you own.
- Leave the skip rules on. They are why the total at the end is a number and not an estimate.
What it will open
A photo library is never only photographs. Video from the same phone, RAW files beside their JPEG previews, sidecar files from whatever catalogued them once, and the occasional PDF someone dropped in there. All of it is counted, none of it is touched, and the count is shown before the queue starts so the shape of the folder is not a surprise at file three thousand.
Photographs from an iPhone are commonly HEIC. This site ships no HEIC decoder of its own: Safari decodes HEIC itself and those files are written as JPEG, while in other browsers each HEIC is left alone with the reason on its row. The summary above the queue says how many are in the folder before anything starts.
Questions about long jobs
Does this replace my library?
How do I check a job before I delete anything?
How long does a few thousand photographs take?
Is a second pass over an already-compressed library worth anything?
Other jobs
More ways to shrink a photo
- Compress photosOne photo or a whole folder, one recipe, a skyline of sizes with a line you drag, and a receipt for every file.
- Compress JPEGOne quality number for every JPEG, printed on every row; capture information kept or removed.
- Compress PNGA 256 or 128-colour palette against a lossless pass, the smaller kept, transparency intact.
- Compress WebPLossy WebP at a quality you choose, or lossless with every pixel compared.
- Compress GIFAnimated GIFs under 10, 8 or 5 MB, with the motion and timing kept.
- Compress iPhone photosHEIC to small JPEG where your browser can open HEIC, with every format change stated on its row.
- Compress image without losing qualityNo re-encode: JPEG Huffman tables rebuilt, PNG recompressed, pixels compared before a row says identical.
- Reduce photo size in KBType a KB target or a range. Quality first, then fewer pixels, checked against the exact bytes written.
- Compress photo to 20 KBSignature-sized limits: the pixels come down as well as the quality, with a legibility floor.
- Compress photo to 50 KBThe 20–50 KB range bank and PAN-style forms ask for, with both ends checked.
- Compress photo to 100 KBQuality first, pixels kept where they can be: the common portal upload limit.
- Compress photo to 200 KBSharp enough to print, under 200 KB: usually quality alone gets there.
- Compress photo to 1 MBMB-scale limits for listings and portals: quality first from 88, pixels only if they must.
- Increase photo size in KBReach a form's minimum honestly: a higher quality, then more pixels up to a limit. Never padding.
- Compress photo for exam formSourced, dated presets for bank, PAN, NEET, SSC and US visa uploads, with a PASS or FAIL line per file.
- Compress signature to 20 KBPaper whitened, ink darkened, cropped to the ink, sized to 140 × 60 and checked.
- Compress a scanned documentPaper whitened, text darkened, 200 DPI, under 300 KB a page.
- JPG to PDF under 200 KBPhotos into one PDF under the size you choose, in your order.
- Compress photos for emailA per-file ceiling and a measured total for the set, to check against the attachment limit.
- Compress images for websiteWebP at quality 80, long edge 1920, capture information removed, folders kept.
- Reduce image resolutionFewer pixels by percent, exact width × height, long edge or megapixels, at a light quality.
- Photo metadata viewer and removerSee the camera, date and GPS place in a photo, then remove them.