Video Compressor

Shrink a video to a smaller file right here in the page, without uploading it anywhere. Drop in a clip, pick how much quality to keep and an optional maximum width, choose WebM or MP4, and download the lighter copy. No account to create, no watermark on the output, and no cap on how big a file you hand it.

The free compressor sites get it backwards. You almost always compress a video because something won't take it at full size, a chat app that caps free uploads, or an email that bounces anything over 25 MB. So those sites ask you to upload the whole uncompressed file to their server first, wait for it, then download the result. You've just spent the bandwidth you were trying to save, and a private clip has spent time sitting on a stranger's machine. This tool does the entire job on your own device. The only thing that ever leaves your computer is the finished, smaller file, and only when you decide to send it somewhere. If you want to check that rather than take our word for it, open your browser's network panel and compress a clip. The page fetches the encoder it runs on and nothing else, and your video is never one of the things that goes out.

That matters more for video than for almost any other file. Family moments, a medical or legal recording, unreleased work, a screen capture that happens to show something private. Handing those to an unknown service just to make them smaller is a real risk, and most people take it without thinking twice.

1. Add your video. Drag it onto the drop box or click to pick a file. It reads the common formats a browser can open, including the MP4 and MOV clips that phones and cameras produce.
2. Pick a quality level. Low gives the smallest file, High stays closest to the original, and Medium sits between. This is the bitrate control, the main dial on size.
3. Set a max width if you want one. Type something like 1280 or 720, or leave it on "keep" to hold the original dimensions. It is a ceiling and only ever scales down, so typing 1920 at a clip that is already 480 wide leaves the frame exactly as it is and tells you it did.
4. Choose WebM or MP4. WebM is the default because a browser can reliably produce it. MP4 is there for the apps that still insist on it.
5. Click Compress. A percentage counts up while it works. When it finishes you get the new size, how much smaller it is, and a preview you can play before committing.
6. Download the result. Your original file is left exactly as it was, so the full quality copy is never at risk.

If the file is still too big, lower the maximum width first, before you drop the quality. Resolution scales the entire frame, so going from 1080p to 720p cuts the pixel count of every frame by more than half, and for anything watched on a phone or embedded small on a page you genuinely won't see it. Quality, which is the bitrate, is your second dial. You mostly notice it falling on motion-heavy footage like sports or a shaky handheld shot. A screen recording or a mostly still talking-head holds up fine even on Low.

One honest note about sound. To keep files small the audio is always re-encoded at a low bitrate, whatever you pick for the picture. For a phone clip or a screen capture that's fine, you'd never hear it. But if the video is built around music, a concert you filmed or a track you produced, expect the audio to give up a little more than the picture does. Fair trade for the size you save, just worth knowing before you compress something you actually want to hear.

Because compressing here is instant and free, the smart move is to try, watch the preview, then adjust. Start on Medium at the width your destination actually needs. If it's still heavy, pull the width down a step before you touch quality. If it looks soft, nudge the quality back up.

WebM is the default for a simple reason, your browser can encode it reliably on nearly any machine, and the result plays in every current browser and most editors. If you don't have a specific reason to pick something else, leave it alone.

MP4 is offered because a handful of apps and older devices still refuse anything but MP4. The catch, and this is where cheaper tools quietly break, is that not every browser can build an MP4 directly in the page. When that happens this tool tells you in plain words and points you back to WebM, rather than handing you a broken file or spinning forever with no result. So if you truly need an MP4, try it first, and only fall back if it asks you to.