Compress video for Discord & WhatsApp

A video compressor that never uploads your video

Most online video compressors make you upload the file to their server, wait for it to be processed, then download it again. That's slow for big files, and it means handing a private video to a company you know nothing about. This one works differently: the compression engine runs inside your browser, on your own device. Your video is never sent anywhere. You can turn off Wi-Fi after the page loads and it still works.

You pick a size limit, such as Discord's, WhatsApp's or an email attachment's, and the tool works out the highest quality that fits. You don't need to know anything about bitrates or codecs.

Because the work happens on your device, there's also no queue, no daily limit, no watermark stamped on the result and no "upgrade to export in HD" prompt.

Current file size limits (checked October 2026)

Discord's limit has changed repeatedly: 8 MB until 2023, 25 MB from 2023, cut to 10 MB in 2024, and raised to 20 MB in August 2026. Many compressor pages still say 8 MB or 25 MB. If you're uploading to a server with an older bot or integration that enforces its own cap, the 10 MB preset is there for that. Limits change, so if a platform refuses a file this tool says should fit, trust the number the app itself shows you.

How the compression works

Video file size is, roughly, bitrate × duration. Bitrate is how many bits each second of video gets. To fit a size limit, the tool reads your video's length, works out the total bitrate that lands just under the limit, sets aside a slice for the audio, and gives the rest to the picture.

Then it decides the resolution. A low bitrate spread over a full 1080p frame produces smeary, blocky video. The same bitrate on a 720p or 480p frame looks clean. So the tool scales the picture down only as far as the bitrate requires:

The video is encoded as H.264 in an MP4 file, with AAC audio. That's the most widely playable combination there is: Discord previews it inline, WhatsApp accepts it, and every phone, browser and computer plays it. The encoder is ffmpeg.wasm, the open-source FFmpeg tool compiled to run in a web page.

The tool aims about 5% under your limit. If the result still comes out too big, which can happen with very fast-moving footage, it automatically runs once more at a lower bitrate.

Rough guide: how much video fits

These are approximate durations at a reasonable quality for each size, assuming 96 kbps audio. Fast action (gaming, sports) needs more bitrate than a talking head to look good.

These figures are simple arithmetic (size × 8 ÷ bitrate), not measurements, so treat them as a ballpark. Longer videos still compress fine; the tool just drops the resolution further.

Using it on your phone

iPhone

Open this page in Safari, tap the box and choose Photo Library to pick a video. iPhone videos are HEVC in a .MOV file; the tool converts them to H.264 MP4, which also plays on Windows and Android. When it's done, tap Download, then find the file in Files → Downloads and share it from there.

Android

Open the page in Chrome, tap the box and pick the video from your gallery or files. The compressed MP4 goes to your Downloads folder.

Compression in a browser takes time, longer than the video itself plays. On our test machine, a recent desktop Mac, a 60-second 720p 60fps clip took about three minutes. Phones are slower than that. Keep the screen on and the tab open while it runs; a short, trimmed clip finishes much sooner.

Tips for the best-looking result

• Trim first. Cutting a 3-minute clip down to the 40 seconds that matter does more for quality than any setting, because every second you remove gives the rest more bitrate.
• Send as a Document on WhatsApp if quality matters more than an inline preview. WhatsApp won't recompress it.
• For Discord, use the file you downloaded here rather than letting a phone app "optimise" it again on upload.
• Screen recordings and slides compress extremely well. Gameplay and handheld footage with lots of motion need the most bitrate.

When something goes wrong

• "Couldn't read this video's length." The file may be damaged or an unusual format. Re-export it from your phone or editor as MP4 and try again.
• The page freezes or the tab crashes on a very large file. That's the browser's memory limit. Trim the video first, or use a computer.
• The result looks too blurry. The video is long for the limit you chose. Trim it, pick a bigger limit (e.g. Nitro, or WhatsApp as a Document), or split it into parts.
• It's very slow. That's expected: encoding in a browser is several times slower than a desktop app such as HandBrake, and slower than the video's own length. Trim the clip first, use a computer rather than a phone, and keep the tab in front, because browsers slow down background tabs.

Other ways to make a video smaller, compared

The honest summary: a browser tool is the most convenient and the most private, and a desktop app is the fastest. For a clip of a few minutes, convenience usually wins. For an hour-long recording, install HandBrake.

Step by step on Windows and Mac

1. Open this page in Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari. Chrome and Edge are usually the quickest at this kind of work.
2. Drag the video file from File Explorer or Finder onto the box, or click the box and choose it.
3. Pick the preset for where you're sending it, or choose Custom and type a size.
4. Click Compress video and leave the tab open in front; browsers slow down background tabs.
5. Preview the result, check the before and after sizes, then click Download. The MP4 goes to your Downloads folder.

Sending big videos on Discord without compressing

Compression isn't the only way round Discord's limit. Depending on how much quality matters, these also work:

• Upgrade the upload limit. Nitro Basic raises it to 50 MB and Nitro to 500 MB.
• Post a link instead. Upload to Google Drive, Dropbox or YouTube (unlisted) and paste the link; Discord shows a preview for YouTube links.
• Split it. Two 20 MB parts look far better than one 20 MB file squeezed from double the length.

For short clips (most gameplay highlights, memes and phone videos under two minutes), compressing to the free limit is still the simplest option, and the quality loss at 720p is small.

Why H.264, and not HEVC or AV1?

Newer video formats like HEVC (H.265) and AV1 squeeze more quality into each megabyte than H.264. So why does this tool output H.264? Because the point of compressing for Discord or WhatsApp is that the other person can actually play the file, and H.264 is the one format that plays everywhere:

• Discord embeds and previews H.264 MP4 inline in every client. HEVC files from iPhones often show up as a download link instead of a playable video.
• Older Windows PCs and many Android phones can't play HEVC without extra codecs.
• Encoding AV1 in a browser is far slower, minutes for what H.264 does in seconds, and browser support for playing it is still uneven.

For files people need to open without thinking about it, H.264 in an MP4 container is still the right answer.

Compress, trim or split?

Compression has limits. Squeezing a 20-minute gameplay recording into 20 MB means about 0.13 Mbps for the picture, which is fine for a slideshow but unwatchable for fast action. Before compressing, it's worth asking which of three moves fits:

What the settings mean

The result card shows the resolution and video bitrate the tool chose. Here's what those words mean, in case you want to judge the result:

• Resolution (720p, 480p…) is how many lines of pixels tall the picture is. Fewer lines need fewer bits to look clean, which is why the tool lowers it when the budget is tight.
• Bitrate (kbps) is how much data each second of video gets. It's the main lever on file size: double the bitrate, double the size.
• Audio is encoded as AAC at 48–96 kbps depending on the budget. Speech stays clear even at 48 kbps; music benefits from 96.
• Frame rate is kept as the original when there's room. When the budget is tight (under about 2.5 Mbps for the picture), 60fps footage is reduced to 30fps. Each frame then gets twice the data, so it looks sharper, and the encode runs faster. The result card says when this happened.

A note on Discord's mobile app

Coverage of the August 2026 change reported that Discord's mobile apps now check a file's size before their own compression, the same way the desktop app does, where previously a file slightly over the limit could sometimes slip through on a phone. Either way, the safe assumption is that the original file has to fit. If you're uploading from your phone, compressing it here first is the dependable route: the file you upload is exactly the size the result card shows.

Privacy

This is the point of the tool. The video you choose is read by your browser and encoded on your device. It's never uploaded to us or to anyone else. The only things downloaded are the page and the compression engine itself (about 30 MB, fetched once from a public code CDN and cached). There's no account, no history, and nothing to delete afterwards.

Last checked and updated: 11 October 2026. Platforms change how they serve media; if this tool stops working for a link, it is usually fixed within days.