These applications specify exact pixel dimensions and an exact file-size range. Meeting the dimensions first is what makes the size limit easy.
Find the exact pixel dimensions, the file-size range and the accepted formats on the form you are filling in. They differ by country, by visa type and over time — a number from a forum post is not a substitute for the page you are uploading to.
Most applications specify a square or a particular ratio, plus rules about head position and margins. Get the composition right before anything else, because cropping afterwards changes the pixel dimensions again.
If the form asks for 600 × 600, produce exactly 600 × 600. This is the step that makes the file-size limit achievable — a correctly sized photo usually lands inside the range with quality to spare.
Use a target-size mode and set it a few per cent below the stated maximum. If there is a minimum too, check the result clears it — some portals reject a file for being too small as readily as too large.
People usually try to compress the full-resolution photograph down to 100 KB and are disappointed by the result. That is the wrong operation.
At 4000 × 3000 pixels, a 100 KB budget gives the encoder roughly one byte for every 120 pixels, and the result is a blocky mess. At 600 × 600 — which is what the form actually wants — the same 100 KB is enormously generous, and the photograph looks clean.
Resize first. The size limit stops being a fight almost immediately.
There are two definitions of a kilobyte in circulation — 1000 bytes and 1024 — and a file that measures 99 KB by one reading measures 101 KB by the other. Portals do not tell you which they use.
Targeting a few per cent under the maximum removes the ambiguity. If a form says 100 KB, aim for 95.
Where a range is specified, such as 20–50 KB, aim for the upper-middle rather than the very top. Some systems also enforce a minimum, on the reasonable basis that an unreadably small photograph is not usable as identification.
A passport photograph is identity data. Uploading it to a compression service means a copy exists on infrastructure you cannot inspect, governed by a retention policy you are taking on trust.
Every tool on this site processes files in your browser. The photograph is read from your device into the memory of the tab, resized and re-encoded there, and written back — no upload endpoint is involved at any point. You can verify it by loading the page, disconnecting from the network, and compressing the photo anyway.
Whatever tool you use, that is the property worth checking before you hand over a document photograph.
These run in your browser on any device, so nothing is uploaded and there is nothing to install.
By pixels or percentage, aspect ratio locked, across a whole batch.
Open the toolType the limit your form demands and the tool hits it.
Open the toolThe classic job portal and admissions form budget.
Open the toolStrip GPS coordinates, camera model and timestamps before you publish.
Open the toolQuestions
Every answer below is present in the page source, expanded, so it can be read without opening anything.
It depends entirely on the authority — requirements differ by country, by document type and over time. Read the specification on the form you are actually submitting rather than trusting a general figure. The method on this page works whatever the numbers turn out to be.
You almost certainly compressed before resizing. Squeezing a full-resolution photograph into 100 KB gives the encoder nothing to work with. Crop and resize to the required pixel dimensions first, and the same limit becomes generous.
Set your target to around 45 KB. Target-size mode finds the highest quality that fits under your number, so the result sits just below it — comfortably inside the window without brushing either edge.
No. Upload systems inspect the file's contents, not its extension, and a renamed file is rejected — sometimes with a misleading error. Convert it properly to JPEG instead.
Only if the tool does not upload it. Most online compressors send your file to a server, which means a copy of your identity photograph exists somewhere you cannot audit. The tools here run entirely in your browser — nothing is transmitted, which you can confirm by disconnecting from the network after the page loads.
It does no harm and saves a few kilobytes, which can help at very tight limits. It also removes the GPS coordinates of wherever the photograph was taken, which is generally worth doing before uploading anything to a third party.
From the blog
More background from the blog.
A photograph from a phone can carry the coordinates of the place it was taken, the camera serial number and the exact timestamp. Removing that data is straightforward. Removing it carelessly rotates your photos sideways.
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Quality 80 is not 80% of anything. It is an index into a quantisation table. Measured on one photograph: dropping from 100 to 90 removes 77% of the file and 4.2 dB of fidelity; dropping from 40 to 30 removes 17% and costs almost as much.
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Resize before you compress. Measured on one photograph: half the width at quality 80 produced a 16.4 KB file, while full width at quality 40 produced 20.6 KB and looked far worse. The order of operations matters more than the settings.
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