Compress Video to 16 MB
16 MB holds about 31 seconds of comfortable 1080p, or 56 seconds at 720p. It is WhatsApp’s cap for video sent inside a chat on mobile.
Free, no watermark, no account needed. The compressor below is preset to 15 MB so the output lands under 16 MB rather than a couple of percent over it.
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
No watermark · files are processed in the cloud and auto-deleted
Where 16 MB comes from
This is WhatsApp’s in-chat video limit on phones. It is also the least stable number on this site: WhatsApp’s own help pages are inconsistent about it, with some quoting 16 MB and others describing a connection-dependent ceiling several times higher with forced downscaling. Web and desktop are more generous than mobile.
- WhatsApp — Video in chat (mobile)16 MB
The number that stops most in-chat video uploads from a phone.
How long a video fits in 16 MB
The longest clip each resolution can carry inside 16 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1440p | 14s | 23s | 9,000 kbps |
| 1080p | 31s | 61s | 4,000 kbps |
| 720p | 56s | 107s | 2,200 kbps |
| 480p | 116s(2 min) | 209s | 1,000 kbps |
| 360p | 180s(3 min) | 307s | 600 kbps |
Method: 16 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 16 MB leaves 2064 kbps for video, which is exact. Which resolution that is enough for is a recommendation, not a measurement.
What 16 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 | 8,641 kbps | 1080p | Looks fine |
| 30s | 4,256 kbps | 1080p | Looks fine |
| 1 min | 2,064 kbps | 480p | Looks fine |
| 2 min | 968 kbps | 360p | Looks fine |
| 5 min | 310 kbps | 360p | Visibly rough |
| 10 min | 91 kbps | — | Visibly rough |
Method: the bitrate column is arithmetic — 16 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.
16 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, grey means pick a smaller frame. Reading down a column tells you how long a clip can get before that resolution stops being worth it on a 16 MB limit.
Source: Computed, not measured — no encoder was run to produce this figure · Method: 16 MB spread over the duration, minus 128 kbps audio and 2% container overhead. Thresholds from published H.264 bitrate ladders, reduced by about a third for re-encoded source.
What goes wrong at 16 MB
WhatsApp re-encodes what you send, so 16 MB is not a quality target — it is an admission ticket. The file you upload is an input to their encoder, not the thing the recipient watches, and compressing to the visible edge of acceptable before handing it to a second lossy pass is how detail disappears. Leave headroom. If quality matters more than the inline preview, send it as a document instead: that path skips re-compression entirely and accepts files up to 2 GB.
How to compress a video to 16 MB
Drop the video in
The compressor above is already set to 15 MB — just under 16 MB, so the result lands inside the limit rather than a percent over it.
Trim first if it is long
At 16 MB, length costs more than any quality setting. Cutting a clip in half doubles the bitrate available to every frame that is left.
Download and check the hard frames
Look at motion, faces and gradients rather than the average. Those are where compression fails first, and where a preview at full size tells you something a thumbnail cannot.
16 MB questions
Is WhatsApp’s video limit 16 MB or 64 MB?
Both figures appear in WhatsApp’s own documentation. 16 MB is what in-chat video on mobile is usually held to; Web and desktop accept considerably more, and some help pages describe a connection-dependent ceiling with forced downscaling instead of a hard number. 16 MB is the figure to target if you want the upload to work regardless of which client the recipient is on.
Does WhatsApp compress videos I send?
Yes, in-chat video is re-encoded on the way through. That is why uploading a larger file past a certain point buys nothing, and why a clip forwarded a few times looks progressively worse — each pass starts from the previous one’s losses.
How do I send a longer video on WhatsApp without losing quality?
Attach it as a document rather than as in-chat video. That path accepts up to 2 GB and does not re-compress, so the recipient gets your file rather than WhatsApp’s version of it. The trade is that it loses the inline preview and autoplay.
How long a video fits in 16 MB?
About 31 seconds at 1080p and 56 seconds at 720p while staying comfortable. Because WhatsApp will re-encode anyway, treat those as upper bounds and aim slightly below them.
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.