Compress Video to 10 MB
about 19 seconds of comfortable 1080p or 35 seconds at 720p; it matches the default Microsoft Exchange attachment ceiling
No watermark and no installation. The compressor is preset below 10 MB so normal encoder variation still lands under the limit.
Drag and drop a video file to start
Checking your file limits…
Supported: mp4, webm, mov, mkv, avi, wmv and 33 formats in all
Where 10 MB comes from
Two separate things land on 10 MB. Microsoft ships a 10 MB default attachment limit for Exchange accounts, which is why work email so often refuses files that a personal Gmail account accepts. And Discord’s free tier was 10 MB from 2024 until August 2026 — it is 20 MB now, but several of Discord’s own help pages still say 10, so the old number keeps getting repeated as current.
- Email — Exchange / work mail10 MB
Microsoft’s documented default for Exchange mailboxes, and the reason work email is stricter than personal.
How long a video fits in 10 MB
The longest clip each resolution can carry inside 10 MB. “Comfortable” means the bitrate clears what that frame size wants; “watchable” means it is soft but holds together. Both columns are arithmetic on the size and the duration; the thresholds they are compared against are recommendations, documented under the table below.
| Resolution | Comfortable up to | Watchable up to | Needs |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1080p | 19s | 38s | 4,000 kbps |
| 720p | 35s | 66s | 2,200 kbps |
| 480p | 72s(1 min) | 130s | 1,000 kbps |
| 360p | 112s(2 min) | 192s | 600 kbps |
Method: 10 MB spread over the duration, minus 128 kbps of audio and 2% container overhead, then compared against H.264 thresholds derived from published bitrate ladders and reduced by about a third for re-encoded source. A minute inside 10 MB leaves 1242 kbps for video, which is exact. Which resolution that is enough for is a recommendation, not a measurement.
What 10 MB buys at each length
The table above reads by resolution; this one reads by duration. Same arithmetic, the other way round — pick your clip length and see what is left to spend.
| Video length | Bitrate left for video | Resolution it carries | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15s | 5,353 kbps | 1080p | Looks fine |
| 30s | 2,612 kbps | 720p | Looks fine |
| 1 min | 1,242 kbps | 480p | Looks fine |
| 2 min | 557 kbps | 480p | Watchable |
| 5 min | 146 kbps | — | Visibly rough |
| 10 min | 9 kbps | — | Visibly rough |
Method: the bitrate column is arithmetic — 10 MB spread across the duration, minus 128 kbps for stereo audio and 2% for container overhead. It is a hard ceiling, not an estimate. The resolution and verdict columns are a recommendation, derived from published H.264 bitrate ladders and pulled down about a third, because re-encoding footage that has already been compressed once survives lower bitrates than encoding a clean master does. Deliberately conservative — we would rather under-promise than tell you a video will look fine when it will not.
10 MB across lengths and resolutions
The left column is what you have to spend at each length; the cells are what each resolution needs. Green means you clear it comfortably, amber means it is watchable but soft, and grey means pick a smaller frame. Reading down a column shows how long a clip can get before that resolution stops being worthwhile on a 10 MB limit.
Source: Computed, not measured — no encoder was run to produce this figure · Method: 10 MB spread over the duration, minus 128 kbps audio and 2% container overhead. Thresholds come from published H.264 bitrate ladders, reduced by about a third for re-encoded source.
What goes wrong at 10 MB
On work email, 10 MB is the default and not a promise: your administrator may have raised it, and you cannot assume they did — nor that the person you are sending to has the same setting. On Discord, 20 MB is the current cap on every platform; keep 10 MB in reserve as a fallback for the case where a file well under 20 MB is refused anyway.
How to compress a video to 10 MB
Drop the video in
The compressor is set to 9.5 MB so the result stays below the 10 MB limit.
Trim long footage first
At 10 MB, duration costs more than any quality setting. Halving the clip doubles the bitrate available to each remaining frame.
Download and inspect difficult frames
Check motion, faces and gradients at full size. These reveal compression damage before a thumbnail does.
10 MB compression FAQs
Can I compress a video to 10 MB?
Yes. Upload the video and use the preset exact-size target.
What quality fits in 10 MB?
Quality depends mainly on duration, motion and resolution; use the tables on this page to choose.
Why target below 10 MB?
Encoders can overshoot slightly, so the preset leaves headroom below a hard ceiling.
Will the result have a watermark?
No. VidSmaller does not add a watermark.
Other target sizes
Not one of these? Work out any size and length in the calculator — same arithmetic, plus what we measured at the bitrate it gives you.