The short answer
Drop the video on the compressor below, leave Compression on Medium and set Maximum resolution to 720p. That combination gives roughly 10 MB per minute, small enough for most chat apps and fine to watch on a phone or laptop. If it has to be smaller, choose Strong or 480p; if it is for a big screen, choose 1080p.
The result is always an MP4 with H.264 video and AAC audio. If the compressed file would come out larger than the original, which happens with videos that are already well compressed, the tool keeps the original and tells you.
Try it here: Video Compressor
Open the full tool pageWhat makes a video file big
File size is simply bitrate multiplied by length. A video at 8 megabits per second takes 60 MB per minute, because 8 Mbit/s times 60 seconds is 480 megabits, which is 60 megabytes. A handy rule: megabits per second times 7.5 gives megabytes per minute.
Phones record at high bitrates so that the footage survives editing. Depending on the model and settings, a minute of 1080p often takes 40 MB or more, and 4K well over 100 MB. On a phone or laptop screen most of that detail is invisible, which is why compression saves so much without an obvious loss.
- Bitrate: the most important setting. Halving it halves the file.
- Resolution: fewer pixels need fewer bits for the same sharpness, so lowering 1080p to 720p allows a much lower bitrate.
- Length: a 30 second clip is half the size of a one minute clip. Trim before you compress.
- Audio: AAC at 96 kbit/s adds about 0.7 MB per minute. Removing it helps only for very small targets.
- Frame rate: 60 frames per second needs more data than 30 for the same quality, but it matters less than bitrate and resolution.
Realistic sizes per minute
The compressor chooses the bitrate from the output resolution and the Compression level. The table shows what one minute of 16:9 video comes to, including the audio. Real files can differ a little, and a video is never made larger than the original.
| Maximum resolution | Light | Medium | Strong |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1080p | about 38 MB | about 22 MB | about 12 MB |
| 720p | about 17 MB | about 10 MB | about 6 MB |
| 480p | about 8 MB | about 5 MB | about 3 MB |
Settings for email, WhatsApp and upload limits
Gmail accepts attachments up to 25 MB and Outlook typically around 20 MB. Email encoding adds some overhead, so aim a little lower. A two minute clip at 720p Strong (about 12 MB) or one minute at 720p Medium (about 10 MB) fits comfortably.
WhatsApp and similar apps recompress videos you send normally, often quite heavily. Sending a video you compressed yourself at 720p Medium gives you control over the quality; files sent as a document are not recompressed. Discord limits free accounts to 10 MB per file, so plan on 480p Medium for about two minutes or 720p Strong for about 90 seconds.
To hit a fixed limit, work backwards from the length. Divide the limit in MB by the length in minutes, then pick the first cell in the table below that number. Example: a 3 minute video for a 25 MB form allows about 8 MB per minute, so 720p Strong (about 18 MB in total) is the safe choice.
| Goal | Suggested settings | Approximate result |
|---|---|---|
| Email attachment, 1 to 2 minutes | 720p, Medium or Strong | 10 to 12 MB |
| Chat apps | 720p, Medium | about 10 MB per minute |
| 10 MB limit, about 2 minutes | 480p, Medium | about 10 MB |
| Presentation or big screen | 1080p, Medium | about 22 MB per minute |
| Archive with little loss | Keep original, Light | depends on the source |
How to compress on a computer or phone
On Windows, Mac or Linux, open the compressor in Chrome, Edge, Safari or Firefox and drag the video onto it. On an iPhone or Android phone, tap the drop area and pick the video from your gallery or files. Encoding uses your device's hardware video encoder, so even long videos are done in reasonable time; the progress bar shows how far each file is.
You can add several videos at once. All of them get the same settings, and Download all as ZIP saves them in one go. Nothing is uploaded, so the size of the original only depends on your device's memory, not on an upload limit.
When the file is still too big
- Trim it first: cutting the start and end often saves more than any setting, and fast trimming does not cost quality.
- Go one step down: from 720p to 480p, or from Medium to Strong. Each step roughly halves the size.
- Remove audio for silent clips such as screen recordings or product shots.
- Check the message under the file: Already well compressed, original kept means the source was already lean, so lower the resolution to gain more.
- For a long video that must stay sharp, share a link from cloud storage instead of attaching the file.