File Upload Is Too Large? How to Get Under the Limit
An upload form rejecting a file for being too large is one of the most common friction points online, whether it's a job application portal, a form attachment, or a content management system with a strict size cap. The fix is almost always to compress before re-uploading, rather than to search for a workaround.
Figure out what type of file you're dealing with
The right compression approach depends entirely on the file type. A photo is usually oversized because of unnecessary resolution or a lossless format like PNG being used for photographic content. A PDF is usually oversized because of embedded images at full resolution. A video is oversized because of a high bitrate relative to what the destination actually needs. Each has a different, specific fix.
Images: resize first, then compress
If a form only needs a reasonably viewable photo (a profile picture, an ID scan, a supporting document image), resizing down from a full camera-resolution original to something more reasonable, then compressing at a moderate quality setting, typically achieves a dramatic size reduction with no visible quality loss for that use case.
PDFs: compress the embedded images
A PDF's size is almost always about its embedded images rather than its text, so running it through compression — which re-encodes those images at a smaller size — is usually enough on its own to clear a typical upload limit, without needing to remove any pages or content.
Videos: check whether the destination even needs full quality
Video upload limits are often stricter than image or document limits, and a video's bitrate is usually the biggest lever — a more aggressive compression setting frequently gets a video under a typical upload cap with quality loss that's genuinely hard to notice, especially if the destination is going to display the video at a modest size anyway.
Compress Image, Compress PDF, and Compress Video each handle their respective file type directly in your browser, letting you check the resulting size before you attempt the upload again.