About photo2kb
photo2kb is a single-purpose tool: compress an image to an exact KB size, in your browser, with no upload.
What It Does
Most compressors ask you to pick a quality percentage and accept whatever file size comes out. That is backwards for the job people actually have. A visa portal wants 200 KB. A signature upload wants 30 KB. A WhatsApp status looks fine at 100 KB. In every one of those cases the size is the requirement and quality is the free variable.
So photo2kb inverts the controls: you give it the limit, and the encoder searches for the highest quality that still fits. Drop a photo, choose a preset (20, 30, 50, 100, 200 or 500 KB) or type any target between 5 KB and 2 MB, and you get back a file that fits — plus the exact output size, so there is nothing to take on faith.
Why We Built It
Every other compressor asks you to drag a quality slider and hope for the right size. Government portals, visa applications, WhatsApp status — all of them ask for a specific KB limit. So we built the inverse: you tell us the limit, the encoder hits it.
How the target-KB Encoder Works
The encoder is a binary search around the browser’s own image codec. For JPEG and WebP it searches on quality: it encodes at a midpoint, measures the resulting byte size, and moves the low or high bound accordingly until the output sits inside the tolerance band. PNG is lossless and ignores the quality parameter, so for PNG the same search runs on scale instead.
If quality alone cannot reach the target — which happens with very sharp or very large images at small sizes — the encoder drops resolution in steps and runs the search again. It stops as soon as the file fits, and the result panel reports the number of encodes, the elapsed time and the achieved size, so a slow or scaled result is visible rather than hidden.
Everything above runs on your device. See how it works for the algorithm in more detail, and our measurement methodology for how the published benchmarks are produced.
What We Claim About Accuracy — And What We Do Not
We publish a tolerance of roughly ±2 KB, and that figure comes from benchmarks we run and record, on a stated device. It is not a guarantee: the encoder you actually use is the one built into your browser, and Chrome, Safari and Firefox do not produce byte-identical JPEGs from the same canvas. Encoding quality also depends on image content — a photo of a clear sky compresses far better than a photo of foliage.
Two things follow from that, and both are visible in the interface rather than buried in a footnote: we never claim a specific file size without showing you the achieved size, and if the encoder cannot reach your target without scaling, it says so. Claims you can check are worth more than claims you have to trust.
Where People Use It
The busiest targets are bureaucratic rather than creative: exam and government application portals (SSC, passport, visa, signature and photograph uploads), résumé and job-portal attachments, email attachments with a hard cap, and social platforms that re-compress anything oversized. Each of those has a guide page with the exact target, the steps and a measured benchmark:
Privacy Is the Architecture, Not a Setting
There is no upload endpoint in photo2kb, which means there is no server that could hold your image even if we wanted it to. The file is read by the browser, decoded to a canvas, re-encoded and returned as a download. Nothing is transmitted.
Anonymous usage statistics (jobs started per page, average compression ratio) are recorded to keep the published benchmarks honest. File content never leaves your device, and neither does anything derived from it: no thumbnails, no filenames, no EXIF. The only thing we learn is that somebody compressed something.
What We Do Not Do
- No upload. No server-side processing, no temporary bucket, no “files are deleted after an hour” promise to take on faith.
- No account on Free. No sign-up to unlock a higher quality setting or to remove a watermark — paid plans raise limits and batch size, not output quality.
- No watermarks and no branding on your output. What you download is your image.
- No silent failures. If your target is reachable only by scaling, the panel says so.
- No baked-in EXIF. Re-encoding removes metadata including GPS — stated up front, because it is the one side effect people should decide on themselves.
- No affiliate-driven “best compressor” lists. We are the compressor; we are not ranking competitors for commission.
Who Runs photo2kb
photo2kb is part of the Filesq toolkit — a small set of single-purpose web apps built and run by an independent team of engineers who ship their own products. We use the tools on the same terms everyone else does. Read about how we measure benchmarks and how we handle data.
Contact
- Bug reports and feature requests: [email protected]
- Privacy requests: [email protected]
- Abuse reports: [email protected]
FAQ
Is photo2kb free?
The Free plan is, with no account: 20 compressions per session and 5 MB per image, no watermark and no sign-up. Web Pro and Web Ultra subscriptions raise the per-image ceiling, batch size and encoding speed for heavier jobs — the breakdown is on the pricing page.
Does my photo get uploaded anywhere?
No. There is no upload endpoint in the application. Your image is decoded to a canvas in the browser, re-encoded in the browser, and handed back as a download. You can disconnect from the internet after the page loads and it still works — that is the simplest proof.
How accurate is the target size?
On our measured benchmark set the output lands within roughly 2 KB of the target for most photos. Results vary by image content, browser and device encoder, which is why the result panel always prints the exact output size, the number of encodes it took and how long it ran — you can verify the claim yourself on every file.
What if the target is impossible?
If quality alone can not reach the size you asked for, the encoder starts reducing resolution in steps and tries again, and the result panel tells you the output was scaled. It never silently returns a file that misses your target without saying so.
Which formats are supported?
JPG, PNG and WebP. JPEG and WebP targets are hit by searching on quality; PNG is lossless, so the encoder searches on scale instead. Targets run from 5 KB to 2 MB, with quick presets at 20, 30, 50, 100, 200 and 500 KB.
Does compression remove EXIF data such as GPS location?
Yes, and you should know that before you compress. Re-encoding through the browser canvas produces a new image without the original metadata, so GPS coordinates, camera model and timestamps do not survive. For uploads to a portal or a public profile that is usually desirable; if you need the metadata kept intact, do not compress the file.
Can I compress several photos at once?
Yes. Drop a batch or paste images from the clipboard and the queue processes them in order with the same target size. Each result keeps its own download button so you can save them one at a time.
Why do the numbers differ between guides?
Every guide page ships a benchmark measured on a specific device, and the size reduction depends on what is inside the photo. A flat sky compresses far better than foliage. We label the device with each benchmark instead of presenting one number as universal.
Last reviewed · photo2kb is part of the Filesq toolkit.