Job applications, government portals, marketplaces and email systems often reject images over a limit: 100 KB, 200 KB, 1 MB. Here is how to get under it on a Mac.
Free: Preview, by trial and error
- Open the image in Preview and choose File › Export.
- Set Format to JPEG.
- Drag Quality left while watching the file size shown underneath, until it is under your limit.
- If it still will not fit at a quality that looks acceptable, cancel, choose Tools › Adjust Size, make the image smaller, and try again.
This works for one image. For many, every one needs its own guess, because each photo compresses differently.
Why one quality setting does not fit all
A photo of a clear sky compresses far more than a photo of leaves or gravel. At quality 70, one image might be 90 KB and another 400 KB. To get a batch under a limit, each image needs its own quality.
With Shrinker Studio: Fit under
- Drop the images into Studio.
- In the Format step, choose the format and set the quality mode to Fit under.
- Enter your limit in KB.
- Studio finds the highest quality that fits, separately for each image. If even the lowest quality is too big, it offers Resize to fit.
- Check any image with Split, then press Export. The size shown is the exact size Export will write.
Tips for very small limits
- Resize first. For a 100 KB limit, around 1200 pixels on the longest side is a good start.
- Try WebP or AVIF if the site accepts them; they fit more quality into the same size.
- Remove metadata. It is small, but under a tight limit every kilobyte counts. Studio’s Metadata step removes it by default.