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9 proven ways to reduce image file size

Techniques ordered by impact. Work from the top — the first three account for the vast majority of the bytes you can save.

1. Convert to AVIF or WebP

Still the biggest win. Moving a JPEG to WebP at equal quality cuts roughly 25–35%; moving to AVIF cuts 40–50%. If you do nothing else on this list, do this.

2. Resize to display dimensions

A 4000px image shown at 800px wide is carrying 25× more pixels than needed. Downscale to the largest size it will ever be displayed at — typically 1920px for heroes, 1280px for content images.

3. Lower quality to 80

Quality 100 costs a lot for invisible gains. Quality 80 in WebP or AVIF is visually indistinguishable on screen for nearly all photographs and roughly halves the file versus quality 100.

4. Strip EXIF metadata

Camera model, lens, GPS coordinates, editing history and embedded thumbnails can account for several percent of file size. Stripping it shrinks files and removes a privacy leak.

5. Run a lossless re-optimization

Tools like OxiPNG (PNG) and MozJPEG's trellis/progressive settings re-encode the same pixel data more efficiently. Zero quality loss, another 2–10% gone.

6. Use the right color space

Photographs should be sRGB for web. Wide-gamut profiles (Adobe RGB, ProPhoto) bloat files and render incorrectly in browsers unless handled explicitly.

7. Stop using PNG for photographs

PNG is lossless and wonderful for graphics with flat color. For photographs it is enormous — often 5–10× an equivalent WebP at quality 80 with no visible difference. Convert photo PNGs to WebP.

8. Reduce color depth for graphics

Logos, icons and flat-color graphics often need 256 colors or fewer. Reducing to 8-bit palette PNG (or SVG) shrinks these files dramatically with no visible change.

9. Crop tighter

The most reliable optimization: don't include pixels nobody will see. Crop to the subject, remove dead space, and shoot/export at the aspect ratio you'll actually display.

Related guides

Image optimization: the complete guideCompress images for the webBest free image compression toolsWhat is lossless compression?

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Frequently asked questions

In order of impact: convert to AVIF or WebP, resize to the actual display dimensions, lower quality to 80, strip EXIF metadata, and run a lossless re-optimization pass. Together these typically cut file size by 50–70% with no visible quality loss.

Converting JPEG and PNG to AVIF or WebP. AVIF is typically 40–50% smaller than the JPEG baseline and WebP 25–35% smaller, at equivalent visual quality. Resizing to display dimensions is a close second.

Keep the JPEG format but apply lossless optimizations: MozJPEG's trellis quantization and progressive encoding, plus EXIF stripping. That yields roughly 10–15% with no change in pixels. For larger savings, accept quality 80 — visually indistinguishable on screen.

PNG is lossless, so photographs stored as PNG are huge — often 5–10× the size of an equivalent WebP at quality 80. Use PNG only for flat-color graphics, logos and images needing hard transparency, and run OxiPNG optimization on those.

No. EXIF metadata contains camera model, settings, GPS coordinates and embedded thumbnails — none of it affects the visible image. Removing it reduces file size and protects privacy, with zero visual difference.