Compress Video to 50 MB
50 MB holds about 99 seconds of comfortable 1080p, or nearly 3 minutes at 720p. It is Discord Nitro Basic’s per-file cap, and the hard ceiling on anything uploaded through the Telegram Bot API.
Free, no watermark, no account needed. The compressor below is preset to 48 MB so the output lands under 50 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 50 MB comes from
Two unrelated systems stop at 50 MB. Discord Nitro Basic raises the free tier’s 20 MB to 50. And Telegram’s Bot API caps uploads at 50 MB regardless of the account behind the bot — a human on the same account can send 2 GB, which is why this limit surprises almost everyone building automation.
- Discord — Nitro Basic50 MB
What a Nitro Basic subscription buys over the 20 MB free tier.
- Telegram — Bot API50 MB
A limit of the interface rather than the platform — the same account sends 2 GB by hand.
How long a video fits in 50 MB
The longest clip each resolution can carry inside 50 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4K | 20s | 33s | 20,000 kbps |
| 1440p | 45s | 73s | 9,000 kbps |
| 1080p | 99s(2 min) | 193s | 4,000 kbps |
| 720p | 176s(3 min) | 334s | 2,200 kbps |
| 480p | 364s(6 min) | 654s | 1,000 kbps |
| 360p | 564s(9 min) | 960s | 600 kbps |
Method: 50 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 50 MB leaves 6723 kbps for video, which is exact. Which resolution that is enough for is a recommendation, not a measurement.
What 50 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30s | 13,573 kbps | 1440p | Looks fine |
| 1 min | 6,723 kbps | 1080p | Looks fine |
| 2 min | 3,297 kbps | 720p | Looks fine |
| 5 min | 1,242 kbps | 480p | Looks fine |
| 10 min | 557 kbps | 480p | Watchable |
| 30 min | 100 kbps | — | Visibly rough |
Method: the bitrate column is arithmetic — 50 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.
50 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 50 MB limit.
Source: Computed, not measured — no encoder was run to produce this figure · Method: 50 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 50 MB
If you are hitting 50 MB through a bot or an API rather than by hand, check whether the limit belongs to the platform or to the interface. Telegram’s is the clearest case: the 50 MB ceiling is a property of the Bot API, not of Telegram, and no amount of account upgrading moves it. Uploading the same file manually works fine.
How to compress a video to 50 MB
Drop the video in
The compressor above is already set to 48 MB — just under 50 MB, so the result lands inside the limit rather than a percent over it.
Trim first if it is long
At 50 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.
50 MB questions
What does Discord Nitro Basic actually change?
The per-file upload cap, from 20 MB on the free tier to 50 MB. Full Nitro raises it to 500 MB. The cap follows your account rather than the server, so boosting a server does not change what you personally can upload.
Why is my Telegram bot limited to 50 MB when my account sends 2 GB?
Because the limit is in the Bot API, not in Telegram. Bots can upload 50 MB and download 20 MB through the standard API no matter what the account behind them is entitled to. Sending the same file manually from the same account works.
How long a video fits in 50 MB?
About 99 seconds at comfortable 1080p, roughly 3 minutes at 720p, and 6 minutes at 480p. 50 MB is also the first of these sizes where 1440p is usable for anything longer than a few seconds — 45 seconds of it.
Is 50 MB enough for a 5-minute video?
At 480p, comfortably. At 720p it is watchable but soft, and at 1080p it is not — five minutes inside 50 MB leaves about 1,240 kbps for video, well under what a 1080p frame wants. Drop the resolution rather than pushing the quality setting; the result looks better at the same 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.