- Your photo or document stays on your computer. Nothing is sent over the internet, which matters for private papers.
- Your original file is not changed. You get a new, smaller copy alongside it.
- You can't break anything. If you don't like the result, just start again.
- Photos are always free. Documents (PDFs) are free up to 2 pages. For longer ones, it's £1, which unlocks this tool and our photos-of-a-letter and keep-the-pages-you-need tools for 30 days, so you only pay once.
Choose your photo or document
One at a time. It can be a photo (for example a JPG) or a PDF document.
How small does it need to be?
Look on the form or website for words like "maximum file size 2 MB". If it doesn't say, 2 MB is a safe choice.
Check it and save
Your smaller copy will appear here, so you can check it before saving.
What's really happening? (for the curious)
MB (megabyte) and KB (kilobyte) measure how big a file is. 1 MB is about 1,000 KB. A photo straight from a phone is often 3 to 6 MB, which is why websites with a "maximum 2 MB" limit turn it away. Computers don't all count megabytes in quite the same way, so this page always aims a little under your limit to be safe.
A photo is made of millions of tiny coloured dots (pixels). A modern phone takes photos around 4,000 dots across, far more detail than a form needs. To make a photo smaller, this page tries saving it a little more efficiently first (a JPG photo can be saved at different quality levels). If that isn't enough, it uses fewer dots, step by step, and stops as soon as the photo fits. That way it stays as clear as possible. The new copy is always a JPG, the type of photo almost every website accepts.
Phones also save a few extra details alongside each photo, such as the date, the type of phone, and sometimes where it was taken. These are called EXIF details. The smaller copy leaves them out, which saves a little space too. Your original photo still has them.
A PDF (Portable Document Format) is a type of document that looks the same on every computer, phone and printer. To shrink one, this page first tries a gentle tidy-up that packs the document more neatly without changing anything you can see. That doesn't always save much. If it's still too big, the page takes a clear picture of each page and builds a new PDF from those pictures, at about 100 to 150 dots per inch, which is plenty for reading and printing letters.
The catch with the picture method: in the new copy you can't select, copy or search the writing, because each page is now a picture of the writing rather than the letters themselves. For sending a bill, statement or letter as evidence, that's fine. Your original document still works as before.
If something can't be made small enough without the writing becoming hard to read, this page tells you rather than giving you a blurry copy. Sending fewer pages usually solves it.
All of this happens inside your web browser (the program you're using to view this page, such as Chrome, Edge or Safari). Your file is never sent anywhere.