Compress a JPG to 100 KB
Government forms, university portals and job sites often cap uploads at 100 KB. Drop a photo below and it comes back under that limit, with an honest report of what changed.
Why 100 KB specifically
100 KB is the most common cap in the world of forms that were designed in 2009 and never revisited. Indian passport and PAN applications, Philippine civil service forms, Nigerian job portals and a long tail of university admission systems all use it.
The number is unforgiving: a file of 100.4 KB fails, and some portals round up when they display a size. Aim for 97–99 KB, which is what this tool does by default — it treats your input as a ceiling, not a destination.
If your form actually says 50 KB, type 50 into the box. If it says 20 KB, the photo will be small enough that you should consider a passport-photo tool instead, because the dimensions will have shrunk considerably.
What a typical photo does
| Starting point | What changes | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 4.2 MB phone photo (4000 × 3000) | Quality drops to ~0.62, scaled to 78% | 98 KB, 3120 × 2340 |
| 1.8 MB screenshot (1080 × 1920) | Quality only, no rescale | 99 KB, 1080 × 1920 |
| 640 KB scanned form | Light quality trim | 97 KB, 640 × 480 |
| 18 MB DSLR export | Scaled to 41%, quality 0.7 | 99 KB, 1640 × 1230 |
Questions
Will it still look acceptable on a form?
For an ID photo or a headshot, yes — these are viewed at thumbnail size. For a document scan where someone must read small text, check the result before submitting.
Can I compress a PDF to 100 KB?
Not with this tool; it only handles images. A PDF is a container with its own compression, and reducing it usually means re-rasterising the pages.
The result is 99 KB but the form still rejects it.
Some portals measure the file after re-encoding it, which can add a few kilobytes. Try a target of 90 KB for headroom.
Does this work on an iPhone?
Yes, in Safari. Photos taken on an iPhone are HEIC by default, but Safari can decode them, and the output is a JPG the form will accept.