Why photos go over 2 MB
Phone cameras save photos with many millions of pixels at a high quality, so a single photo often weighs 3 to 5 MB or more. Forms and sites with a 2 MB limit then refuse it.
| Limit | Bytes |
|---|---|
| 2 MB, counted as 1000 bytes per KB | 2,000,000 bytes |
| 2 MB, counted as 1024 bytes per KB | 2,048,000 bytes |
| This tool keeps the file under | 2,000,000 bytes |
Already under 2 MB?
If your photo is already under the limit, the tool says so and lets you download it unchanged. Nothing is compressed that does not need to be.
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.