Compress Video to 20 MB Online

Set an exact 20 MB ceiling and download a watermark-free MP4.

Use this target when an upload form, message app or storage rule gives you a hard 20 MB limit. The compressor starts at 19 MB to leave room for encoder variation.

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

Checking your file limits…

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

Output file size:

Preparing…

Where 20 MB comes from

Twenty megabytes now has two clear sources. Discord raised its free per-file limit to 20 MB in August 2026, and Microsoft documents 20 MB as the default total message size for internet email accounts in Outlook.

Discord — Free20 MB
The current free-account per-file upload ceiling.
Discord limits in full Discord — File Attachments FAQ Discord — Account caps @discord — 20 MB announcement, incl. the mobile measurement change (13 Aug 2026)verified 2026-09-14
Outlook — Outlook.com / internet email account20 MB
Microsoft’s documented default total message size for an internet email account.
Outlook limits in full Microsoft — Reduce attachment size to send large files with Outlookverified 2026-10-30

How long a video fits in 20 MB

The longest clip each resolution can carry inside 20 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 20 MB
Resolution	Comfortable up to	Watchable up to	Needs
1440p	18s	29s	9,000 kbps
1080p	39s	77s	4,000 kbps
720p	70s(1 min)	133s	2,200 kbps
480p	145s(2 min)	261s	1,000 kbps
360p	225s(4 min)	384s	600 kbps

Method: 20 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 20 MB leaves 2612 kbps for video, which is exact. Which resolution that is enough for is a recommendation, not a measurement.

What 20 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	10,833 kbps	1440p	Looks fine
30s	5,353 kbps	1080p	Looks fine
1 min	2,612 kbps	720p	Looks fine
2 min	1,242 kbps	480p	Looks fine
5 min	420 kbps	360p	Visibly rough
10 min	146 kbps	—	Visibly rough

Method: the bitrate column is arithmetic — 20 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.

20 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 20 MB limit.

Source: Computed, not measured — no encoder was run to produce this figure · Method: 20 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 20 MB

The same number does not mean the same thing. Discord measures the file, so 19 MB is a safe direct target. Outlook measures the encoded message: base64 overhead makes a 20 MB raw video too large, so an email attachment needs to be closer to 14 MB.

How to compress a video to 20 MB

Drop the video in
The compressor is set to 19 MB so the result stays below the 20 MB limit.
Trim long footage first
At 20 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.

20 MB compression FAQs

How do I compress a video to 20 MB?

Upload the video, keep Target size selected, and use the preset 19 MB target. The output is an H.264 MP4 with no watermark.

Why target 19 MB instead of exactly 20 MB?

Target-size encodes can vary slightly. The small margin helps the downloaded file stay below a hard 20 MB upload ceiling.

Can a long video still fit in 20 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.