Compress an image to under 1MB

A generous limit, usually met by resizing alone

1 MB is a common ceiling on job portals, CMS uploads, forum attachments and government forms, and it is roomy enough that most images clear it without touching quality.

A modern phone photo is often 3–6 MB at 4000 pixels wide. Reducing it to 1600 pixels — still larger than most screens display — typically lands somewhere around 300–500 KB at good quality. That single step solves the problem for the majority of images.

The order that wastes the least quality

Work down this list and stop as soon as you are under:

• Resize to the largest dimension the image will actually be shown at.
• Export at quality 85, which is visually indistinguishable from the original on most photographs.
• Switch to WebP if the destination accepts it, for another 25–35%.
• Only then drop quality further, checking the result at full size.

When 1 MB is genuinely tight

Some content resists. Screenshots and images containing text have sharp edges that lossy compression handles badly, so they stay large at any acceptable quality — keep those as PNG and reduce dimensions instead, which often beats a high-quality JPEG of the same content.

Scanned documents are the other awkward case. They are usually text on white, which means they behave like graphics rather than photographs: PNG or a high-quality JPEG at reduced dimensions will look far better at the same size than an aggressively compressed full-resolution scan.

Check what the limit actually applies to

Some forms cap each file at 1 MB; others cap the whole submission, which is a different problem if you are uploading several documents. Reading which one you are facing before compressing saves doing the work twice.

It is also worth checking whether the limit comes with a dimension or format restriction. Portals that specify 1 MB frequently also specify JPEG only, or a maximum pixel width, and an image that meets the size limit in the wrong format is rejected just as firmly as an oversized one.