How to Make a Photo Small Enough for an Online Form

Why the form rejects your photo

A photo from a modern phone is usually 2–6 MB and 12 megapixels or more. Application forms for jobs, visas, universities and government services often allow only 100 KB, 200 KB or 1 MB, and may also ask for a certain file type and pixel size.

Before you start, read the form’s requirements and note:

• the file type, usually JPG;
• the maximum file size, such as “under 200 KB”;
• any pixel size, such as 600 × 600 pixels;
• for ID photos, rules about the background, framing and how recent the photo is.

Step 1: make it a JPG

• iPhone photos are often HEIC files, which many forms don’t accept. Convert them with HEIC to JPG.
• Screenshots and some scans are PNG files, which are much larger for photos. Convert them with PNG to JPG.

Step 2: resize it

The number of pixels has the biggest effect on file size. If the form gives a pixel size, use exactly that. If it doesn’t, 1,000–1,200 pixels on the longest side is plenty for a form.

Use the image resizer and leave Keep aspect ratio on, so the photo isn’t stretched. A 4,000 × 3,000 photo resized to 1,200 × 900 keeps less than a tenth of its pixels, and the file shrinks to match.

Step 3: compress it

Open the resized photo in the image compressor and start at 75% quality. Check the new file size:

• If it’s still too big, lower the quality in steps of 10%, or resize a little smaller.
• Below about 50–60% quality, faces and text start to look blurry. Resizing smaller usually looks better than compressing harder.
• Photos with lots of fine detail, such as grass, patterned clothes or small text, come out larger than plain ones.

Leave a little margin. Some sites count 1 KB as 1,024 bytes and others as 1,000, so aim for about 90 KB when the limit is 100 KB.

Scanned documents

For forms that want one PDF with several pages, make each page image smaller first (steps 2 and 3), then combine them with JPG to PDF. A PDF made from images is about as large as all its images together.

Keep your documents private

ID cards, passports and certificates contain personal details. Many online tools upload your files to their servers. Ours don’t: resizing, compressing and converting all happen in your browser, and your files never leave your device.