How to compress a video for email

Email was built for text, so providers cap how much you can attach. Gmail's limit is 25 MB per message, and other services are often lower, so check both your provider's limit and your recipient's. Phone videos blow past that in seconds: a minute of 4K can be hundreds of megabytes.

Aim well under the limit

Attachments are converted to text for transport, which can make them roughly a third larger than the file on your disk, and your message body and other attachments count too. As a rule of thumb, aim for around 70% of the limit: about 18 MB for a 25 MB cap.

Pick the level using the estimate

After you choose your video, the compressor shows an estimated size for Low, Medium and High compression. Choose the lowest level whose estimate fits under your target, because lower compression keeps more quality. The estimate is checked against the real file when it finishes, so you'll know the true size before you attach anything.

As a rough guide from our own tests: one minute of ordinary footage came out around 4–5 MB at High compression and roughly 10–20 MB at Medium. Very detailed footage, such as foliage or water in 4K, needed several times more. The estimate shown for each level for your own video is the better number to use.

If even High is too big

Trim it. Send only the part that matters with the Trim tool. Halving the length roughly halves the size.
Remove the audio if it isn't needed, with the audio tool. It saves a little, and more on very small targets.
Send a link instead. Upload the original to a cloud drive and share the link. Recipients get full quality and your mailbox stays small.

Before you send

Play the downloaded file once. A standard MP4, which is what this tool produces, opens on almost every phone, computer and mail client. Keep the original in case you need the full quality later.

Compress a video Free, no account, nothing uploaded.