Free Online Video Compressor
Compress video online to the file size you choose — up to 90% smaller, no sign-up to try.
Drag and drop a video file to start
Max file size: 500 MB free, up to 1.5 GB with a paid plan
Supported: mp4, webm, mov, mkv, avi, wmv and 33 formats in all
- Never adds a watermark
- Cloud encoding, no CPU melt
- Deleted when the link expires
Reduce video file size without the guesswork
Five compression modes, thirty-three input formats and encoding that runs on our servers while you get on with your day.
Land under a file size you choose
Need it under 18 MB for email, 19 MB for Discord, or 15 MB for WhatsApp? Type the number and we encode to fit it.
Target size mode
Target-size encoding, so the output lands near the number you asked for rather than 3× over.
One tap for the usual ceilings
Discord, WhatsApp, email and Reddit sit right under the slider, so nobody has to do the arithmetic.
Or take full control
CRF, resolution and max-bitrate live in the Advanced Compression tab.
Quality you can actually ship
Modern H.264 and H.265 encoders with sane defaults. A screen recording survives a 70% cut looking essentially untouched; camera footage at that setting is watchable but visibly softer.
H.265 / HEVC
Roughly 30% smaller than H.264 on camera footage at matching quality — less on animation, and larger on screen recordings, so it is not a blanket win. Paid plans.
Never a watermark
Free or paid, your video comes back clean.
Old-device mode
One switch for baseline profile and yuv420p when the file has to play everywhere.
Your laptop stays cool
Encoding happens on our servers, not your machine. Close the tab, come back later, the file is still waiting.
Nothing to install
Works in any modern browser, on any OS, including Chromebooks and iPads.
Try it before you commit
A sample clip is one tap away — it compresses right in your browser — and signed-out visitors get 1 free credit with no account.
Files auto-expire
Uploads and results are deleted automatically. We never keep your footage.
FIRST-PARTY DATA
Real usage, not a made-up compression claim
A compressor should show what people actually ask it to do, not only a best-case demo. This dated production snapshot explains why exact target size is the main workflow in VidSmaller.
What 424 real compression jobs asked for
Exact target size was chosen almost three times as often as a preset. The same jobs reduced 80.6 GB of source video to 22.8 GB, but that aggregate is not a promise for any one file.
| Metric | Observed result |
|---|---|
| Target-size demand | 306 of 424 jobs; median target 20 MB |
| Settled-job success | 401 of 421 settled jobs (95.2%) |
| Aggregate bytes removed | 80.6 GB to 22.8 GB (71.7% removed) |
Source: Aggregate production jobs, 5 Sep–16 Oct 2026 (n=424) · Method: Admin export grouped by final job status and selected compression mode; byte totals were summed before rounding to one decimal place.
How to compress a video online
No account needed to try it, and nothing to install. The whole thing happens in your browser and on our encoders.
Upload your video
Drag an MP4, MOV, MKV, AVI, WebM or any of the other 33 supported formats onto the box above, or click to browse. Your browser sends the file straight to our storage over a one-time upload link — it never passes through a third party. Signed-out visitors can upload up to 500 MB per file; signing in raises that to 1 GB.
Choose how small you need it
Basic Compression is one control: drag the Output file size slider, or type the number of MB you need — 18 for Gmail, 19 for free Discord, 15 for WhatsApp — each of them one tap away, and each set just under the platform's real ceiling. Advanced Compression holds the rest: H.264 or H.265, the compression method (an exact size, a constant quality, a percentage of the original, a resolution or a bitrate ceiling), the CRF value, encoder speed and old-device compatibility.
Download the compressed file
Encoding runs on our servers, so your laptop fans stay quiet and you can close the tab. Come back to the same link and the file is waiting — with no watermark on it, on any plan. The staged upload is deleted the moment the job finishes.
Most clips under five minutes finish in under a minute. Longer files and H.265 output take proportionally longer, because H.265 is roughly 3.8× slower to encode than H.264.
Where a smaller video actually matters
Every platform has a cap. VidSmaller gets you under it without re-editing anything.
Social & short-form
Get long recordings under TikTok, Instagram and X upload limits while keeping the frame sharp enough for mobile.
Websites & landing pages
A 200 MB hero video kills your Core Web Vitals. Ship a 12 MB version that still looks premium.
Storage & archives
Screen recordings, drone footage and phone clips pile up fast. Compress the worst offenders and reclaim your drive.
Formats, codecs and compression modes
The short version: if a video player can open it, VidSmaller can probably shrink it.
What each CRF value costs you, by kind of footage
Same encoder, same settings, three kinds of source. A screen recording at CRF 32 is still near the transparency line and under a megabyte; camera footage at the same setting has visibly fallen apart and is three times the size. This is why nobody can honestly give one number for how much your video will shrink.
| Source | CRF 18 | CRF 20 | CRF 23 | CRF 26 | CRF 28 | CRF 32 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Screen recording | 0.99 MBVMAF 99.99 | 0.90 MBVMAF 99.99 | 0.76 MBVMAF 99.98 | 0.65 MBVMAF 99.97 | 0.58 MBVMAF 99.71 | 0.46 MBVMAF 96.92 |
| Animation | 12.95 MBVMAF 94.86 | 9.94 MBVMAF 93.76 | 6.98 MBVMAF 91.42 | 4.93 MBVMAF 87.68 | 3.85 MBVMAF 84.07 | 2.32 MBVMAF 73.94 |
| Camera footage | 10.03 MBVMAF 97.98 | 8.27 MBVMAF 96.62 | 6.22 MBVMAF 93.74 | 4.63 MBVMAF 89.42 | 3.77 MBVMAF 85.61 | 2.45 MBVMAF 75.44 |
Source: 18 local encodes, 2026-09-14 — 3 clips (1080p, 10s) × 6 CRF values, VMAF against the original · Method: libx264, preset medium, video only. We used local FFmpeg rather than our production encoder: the CRF curve belongs to the codec, but this is a proxy for our output, not a recording of it. · Tools: Netflix VMAF, FFmpeg H.264 / CRF guide
Input formats
MP4, MOV, MKV, AVI, WebM, FLV, WMV, M4V, MPEG, MPG, MPV, M1V, 3GP, 3G2, 3GPP, TS, MTS, M2TS, MOD, VOB, OGV, ASF, RM, RMVB, DivX, Xvid, F4V, F4P, SWF, QT, MXF, WTV and DVR-MS — 33 containers in total. Phone recordings, screen captures, drone footage, DSLR clips, Zoom and Teams exports, OBS recordings and GoPro files all work as-is.
Output containers
MP4 (the safe default — plays on every phone, browser, TV and editor), MKV, WebM and MOV. Keeping the container as MP4 with H.264 video is what you want for email attachments, Discord, WhatsApp and anything that has to play on someone else's device.
Video codecs
H.264 / AVC is the default because compatibility is perfect and encoding is fast. H.265 / HEVC is worth it for camera footage — our own VMAF sweep puts it 25–40% smaller at matching quality, which matters on large archives. On animation the gap closes as quality rises and reverses above VMAF 91. On screen recordings H.265 is actively worse at our default encoder speed — measured through our own pipeline it came back about ten times larger than H.264 at the same quality, so leave screen captures on H.264 — but it is slower to encode and older devices and some browsers will refuse to play it. If the file is going to someone else, stay on H.264.
Compression modes
Target size aims at the file size you type in, and on most footage lands just under it. Constant quality (CRF) holds a fixed perceptual quality and lets the size fall where it may — CRF 18 is visually lossless, 23 is a sane default, 28 is small and noticeably softer. Max bitrate caps the data rate for streaming. Resolution scaling drops 4K to 1080p or 1080p to 720p, which is usually the single biggest win. Presets bundle sensible combinations of all of the above.
What actually makes a video big
Four things, in rough order of impact: resolution, bitrate, duration and codec. A 4K clip carries four times the pixels of 1080p; if it will only ever be watched on a phone, scaling down costs you nothing visible and saves the most. Bitrate is the next lever — phone and screen recordings are usually encoded far above what the content needs, which is why they routinely drop 70–90% with no visible change. Frame rate matters less than people expect: going 60fps to 30fps saves far less than dropping one resolution step.
Limits
Signed-out: 500 MB per file, 1 credit in total. Free account: 1 GB per file and 2 one-time welcome credits. Pro: 1.5 GB per file and H.265. 4K works on every plan — it just consumes more credits, because larger frames take longer to encode.
Simple plans, no surprise bills
Try a short video free with 1 credit, files up to 500 MB and no watermark. One-off packs start at $3; subscriptions are optional.
100 credits
For the one file you need under a limit today.
- API access included · shared credits
- 100 credits, no expiry
- Up to 1.5 GB per file
- H.265 / HEVC
- No account needed after checkout
500 credits
No subscription. Credits never expire.
- API access included · shared credits
- 500 credits, no expiry
- Up to 1.5 GB per file
- H.265 / HEVC
- Stacks on top of any plan
Questions people actually ask
If something is still unclear, email us — a human replies.
Stop fighting upload limits
Compress your first video right now — no account, no watermark, no install.
Why people keep it bookmarked