Compress Image to 20 KB

Getting an image under 20 KB

20 KB is one of the smallest limits you will meet online. It is common for scanned signatures, thumb impressions and small photos on exam registrations, government portals and some job applications. A normal phone photo is 100 to 400 times bigger, so the image has to shrink a lot.

This tool does that in two ways at once. It lowers the JPG quality as far as it can without making the picture blocky, and if that is not enough it reduces the width and height until the file fits. You always get the largest, clearest image that stays under 20 KB.

What a 20 KB image looks like

For a normal photo, 20 KB usually means a width of roughly 500 to 700 pixels. That is plenty for a small photo field on a form or a thumbnail, but not for printing or zooming in. A signature or a simple black-and-white scan can stay much larger, because flat white areas take almost no space.

Tips for signatures and documents

• Sign on clean white paper with a dark pen. Blue or black ink on white compresses best.
• Crop tightly around the signature before compressing. Empty space around it still costs bytes.
• Use good light and no shadows. Grey shadows add detail the tool has to keep, which makes the file bigger.
• Check the required dimensions. Some forms ask for an exact size, such as 140 × 60 pixels. Resize first with the Image Resizer, then compress here.

If a form allows a little more, use 50 KB instead. The difference in sharpness is clearly visible.

Private and instant

Your images are compressed inside your browser and never uploaded, which matters for signatures and ID photos. Use the size buttons above to try another limit at any time.