Compress an image to 50 KB
Drop in a photo, signature or document scan and it comes back under 50 KB. The tool searches for the highest quality that still fits the limit and shows you the size it reached, so you can upload without checking the file first.
Everything happens inside this browser tab. Your image is not uploaded to a server and is not stored anywhere — close the tab and it is gone.
What 50 KB buys you
Fifty kilobytes is a tight budget: roughly 400,000 bits to describe an entire picture. A small headshot at 300×400 pixels fits comfortably and still looks clean. A full-page scan or a phone photo will have to be reduced in dimensions as well as quality before it fits, because there is a floor below which a given number of pixels cannot be described, no matter how aggressive the encoder is. The tool handles that automatically and reports the size it achieved.
Questions about the 50 KB limit
Which forms ask for 50 KB?
It is the classic limit for the small supporting images on an application: the signature box, the thumb impression, the passport-size photo on an exam or visa form. The main document usually gets a more generous allowance while these little ones are capped hard at 50 KB or even 20 KB. Read the instructions carefully, because the same form often sets a different limit for each field.
Will a document scan still be readable at 50 KB?
Often, but only if you help it. Crop away the white margins first — they cost bytes and carry no information. Photograph or scan the page straight on rather than at an angle, so the encoder is not spending detail on a skewed background. Text suffers more than photographs do at low quality because letters are made of exactly the hard edges lossy compression rounds off, so if the result is unreadable, crop tighter rather than trying again at the same framing.
Should I use 50 KB or 100 KB?
Use whichever number the form actually states, and if it states 100 KB there is no reason to go lower — you would be discarding quality for nothing. The only case for choosing 50 KB when 100 KB is allowed is a form that measures size in a way you do not trust, or one that silently rejects files without saying why. Otherwise the higher limit always gives the better-looking image.
Why did my image come back smaller on screen too?
Because quality alone could not get it under 50 KB, so the dimensions were reduced in 20% steps until it fit. This is the honest trade: a 4000-pixel-wide photo squeezed into 50 KB without resizing would be an unrecognisable mess of blocks, whereas the same photo at 900 pixels wide looks perfectly sharp at that size. If you need the full dimensions kept, use a form or a preset with a larger budget.
Can I get a transparent logo under 50 KB?
Choose WebP in the format list. PNG is lossless, so the only thing that shrinks it here is resizing, and a logo can lose a lot of size that way before it fits. WebP keeps the transparent background while being allowed to approximate the pixels, which usually gets a logo well under 50 KB at its original dimensions.