Compress Video to 8 MB
about 15 seconds of comfortable 1080p or 28 seconds at 720p; no tracked platform publishes 8 MB as its limit
No watermark and no installation. The compressor is preset below 8 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 8 MB comes from
Nothing we can verify currently requires 8 MB. It is a habit number: a generation of guides and small tools were built around it, and people still target it because it is the figure they remember. Every current cap we track is higher — Discord’s free tier is 20 MB, a default Exchange mailbox is 10 MB, WhatsApp’s in-chat video is 16 MB.
No platform we track publishes 8 MB as a limit. Every cap in our verified set is listed on the platform pages, and none of them is 8 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 8 MB
The longest clip each resolution can carry inside 8 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 | 15s | 30s | 4,000 kbps |
| 720p | 28s | 53s | 2,200 kbps |
| 480p | 58s | 104s | 1,000 kbps |
| 360p | 90s(2 min) | 153s | 600 kbps |
Method: 8 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 8 MB leaves 968 kbps for video, which is exact. Which resolution that is enough for is a recommendation, not a measurement.
What 8 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10s | 6,449 kbps | 1080p | Looks fine |
| 15s | 4,256 kbps | 1080p | Looks fine |
| 30s | 2,064 kbps | 480p | Looks fine |
| 1 min | 968 kbps | 360p | Looks fine |
| 2 min | 420 kbps | 360p | Visibly rough |
| 5 min | 91 kbps | — | Visibly rough |
Method: the bitrate column is arithmetic — 8 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.
8 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 8 MB limit.
Source: Computed, not measured — no encoder was run to produce this figure · Method: 8 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 8 MB
Check what you are actually up against before aiming here. If the real ceiling is 20 MB, compressing to 8 MB throws away 60% of your allowance and the quality that went with it — a 30-second 1080p clip that would have looked clean at 19 MB comes out visibly soft at 8. Target 8 MB when something genuinely enforces it, or when you have been burned by a cap you do not trust and 15 seconds is all you need.
How to compress a video to 8 MB
Drop the video in
The compressor is set to 7.5 MB so the result stays below the 8 MB limit.
Trim long footage first
At 8 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.
8 MB compression FAQs
Can I compress a video to 8 MB?
Yes. Upload the video and use the preset exact-size target.
What quality fits in 8 MB?
Quality depends mainly on duration, motion and resolution; use the tables on this page to choose.
Why target below 8 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.