Compress Video to 15 MB Online

Set an exact 15 MB ceiling and download a watermark-free MP4.

Use this target when an upload form, message app or storage rule gives you a hard 15 MB limit. The compressor starts at 14.5 MB to leave room for encoder variation.

Drag and drop a video file to startTap to choose a video

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Supported: mp4, webm, mov, mkv, avi, wmv and 33 formats in all

Output file size:

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Where 15 MB comes from

Fifteen megabytes is mainly a headroom number. WhatsApp’s in-chat mobile behavior is commonly treated as a 16 MB ceiling, so a 15 MB target leaves enough room for encoder variation instead of landing a fraction over the line.

No platform we track publishes 15 MB as a limit. Every cap in our verified set is listed on the platform pages, and none of them is 15 MB. If something is enforcing it on you, it is a local rule rather than a published one — which is worth knowing before you compress to it.

How long a video fits in 15 MB

The longest clip each resolution can carry inside 15 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.

Longest clip per resolution inside 15 MB
Resolution	Comfortable up to	Watchable up to	Needs
1440p	13s	21s	9,000 kbps
1080p	29s	57s	4,000 kbps
720p	52s	100s	2,200 kbps
480p	109s(2 min)	196s	1,000 kbps
360p	169s(3 min)	288s	600 kbps

Method: 15 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 15 MB leaves 1927 kbps for video, which is exact. Which resolution that is enough for is a recommendation, not a measurement.

What 15 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	8,093 kbps	1080p	Looks fine
30s	3,982 kbps	720p	Looks fine
1 min	1,927 kbps	480p	Looks fine
2 min	900 kbps	360p	Looks fine
5 min	283 kbps	—	Visibly rough
10 min	78 kbps	—	Visibly rough

Method: the bitrate column is arithmetic — 15 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.

15 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 15 MB limit.

Source: Computed, not measured — no encoder was run to produce this figure · Method: 15 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 15 MB

Do not mistake a safe target for a published cap. WhatsApp itself documents connection-dependent 64 MB and 100 MB defaults rather than 16 MB, and sending as a document supports much larger files. Use 15 MB when the inline mobile-video path is the requirement.

How to compress a video to 15 MB

Drop the video in
The compressor is set to 14.5 MB so the result stays below the 15 MB limit.
Trim long footage first
At 15 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.

15 MB compression FAQs

How do I compress a video to 15 MB?

Upload the video, keep Target size selected, and use the preset 14.5 MB target. The output is an H.264 MP4 with no watermark.

Why target 14.5 MB instead of exactly 15 MB?

Target-size encodes can vary slightly. The small margin helps the downloaded file stay below a hard 15 MB upload ceiling.

Can a long video still fit in 15 MB?

Yes, but the available bitrate falls as duration rises. Use the tables on this page to decide when lowering resolution will look better than forcing the original frame size.

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.