ExactImage

Compress an image to 20 KB

The tightest limit you are likely to meet. The tool shrinks dimensions rather than destroying quality, so the result stays readable.

Drop an image here, or click to choose one

You can also paste a screenshot with Ctrl+V. JPG, PNG, WebP.

Target file size
Network measuring… Your file never leaves this device

Every byte of that work happened on your own machine. Verify it: open DevTools → Network, and use the tool. No request carries your image, because none is made.

Who actually needs 20 KB

A 20 KB ceiling is almost always a government one. Public-service exam portals across India — SSC, UPSC, railway boards, state commissions — routinely cap the photograph at 20 KB and the signature at a similar or smaller figure, and those limits have not moved in years even as phone cameras went from 3 to 50 megapixels. The gap between what a modern phone produces and what the form accepts is now roughly two hundred to one.

What 20 KB can actually hold

Be realistic about the arithmetic. Twenty kilobytes is 20,480 bytes. A photograph that is 1000 × 1000 pixels contains a million pixels, so at 20 KB you have about one byte for every fifty pixels. No encoder can preserve fine detail at that ratio. What it can preserve is a recognisable face at a modest size — which is exactly what these portals are checking for.

That is why this tool reduces the pixel dimensions once quality alone cannot reach the target, rather than grinding quality down to a smear. A crisp 400 × 500 photograph at 20 KB looks like a photograph. A mushy 1000 × 1250 one at the same size looks like a mistake, and is more likely to be rejected on clarity grounds.

The signature trap

If the same form also wants a signature image, photograph it against white paper in even light and convert to a smaller target still. Signatures compress far better than faces because they are mostly flat white, so a signature will often land well under its limit at full dimensions with no visible loss at all.

Other targets

Compress to 50 KBTight, but workable. At 50 KB a properly cropped portrait still looks like a proper photograph.Compress to 100 KBThe web's most common ceilingCompress to 200 KBRoom to keep real detail. At 200 KB you can hold document scans and text legibly, not just faces.Compress to 500 KBA generous ceiling. Most photos reach it with quality losses you would need to go looking for.Compress to 1 MBThe gentlest common limit. Usually a matter of trimming excess rather than making sacrifices.Resize to exact pixelsSet width and height directly

Questions about 20 KB

Will a 20 KB photo be rejected for being blurry?
It can be, and that is why the approach matters. Portals check that the face is identifiable, not that the file is large. Reducing dimensions to keep the remaining pixels sharp gives you a far better chance than keeping the image large and letting the encoder turn it to porridge. Crop tightly to the head and shoulders before compressing — a tight crop spends every one of those 20,000 bytes on the part being assessed.
My photo will not go under 20 KB. What now?
Crop it tighter and try again. Most failures here are photos with a lot of background: a full-body shot in a busy room is asking the encoder to describe a great deal of irrelevant detail. Crop to head and shoulders against a plain wall and the same 20 KB goes much further. Switching the output to WebP also buys roughly 25-30% if the portal accepts it.
Does the signature need the same treatment?
Usually a smaller limit and an easier job. Signatures are mostly white space, which compresses to almost nothing, so they typically reach their target without any dimension reduction at all.