How small 20 KB is
20 KB is a small fraction of a phone photo. To fit, the photo has to get smaller in pixels too, often well under 1000 px wide. That is enough for a small portrait on a form, not for a large screen.
| Limit | Bytes |
|---|---|
| 20 KB, counted as 1000 bytes per KB | 20,000 bytes |
| 20 KB, counted as 1024 bytes per KB | 20,480 bytes |
| This tool keeps the file under | 20,000 bytes |
Crop close before you compress
With so few bytes, every pixel counts. Crop the photo to what matters, for example the head and shoulders, before you compress it: the 20 KB then go to the face rather than to the background.
Quality first, then pixels
A JPG or WebP file gets smaller in two ways: a lower quality, which drops fine detail the eye hardly sees, or fewer pixels. The tool lowers the quality first, only as far as the photo still looks good, and then makes the photo smaller. Tick “Keep the dimensions” when the size in pixels must stay; then only the quality goes down.
When the photo itself is the problem
Compression makes a photo lighter, not better: it cannot fix a blurry, dark or badly framed picture. If the photo is for a CV, a profile or an application and you have no good one, a professional headshot made from a few selfies gives you one.