Compress a video for WhatsApp
WhatsApp caps media sharing (16 MB for statuses, and larger chat videos get recompressed hard by the app itself). Send a smaller, cleaner file and you control what the recipient sees instead of letting WhatsApp's aggressive recompression decide.
This page opens the video compressor on the 480p / 1 Mbps preset, which puts roughly a minute of video around 8 MB. The math is simple: size is bitrate times duration, and the tool shows the estimate before you commit to the real-time re-encode.
Loading tool…
This is Compress Video preconfigured for this task — open the full tool for every option.
How it works
Select a video; its resolution, duration, and size are shown.
Pick a preset (e.g. 720p / 1 Mbps) or set custom resolution and bitrate.
Export — the video replays through a scaled local canvas and re-encodes at the chosen bitrate.
Before/after sizes are reported from the actual output bytes.
What the tool does
- Resolution scaling with aspect ratio preserved
- Target bitrate control with realistic size estimates
- Audio included at reduced bitrate or removed entirely
- Honest reporting when compression can't beat the original size
How the result is verified
The compressed output is re-decoded locally to confirm it plays, and its true byte size and duration are measured from the output blob before download.
Frequently asked questions
How long a video fits under 16 MB?
At the 480p preset with audio, roughly 100 seconds. Halve the bitrate in custom mode and you get about twice that, with visibly softer quality.
Why does WhatsApp make my videos look bad anyway?
WhatsApp recompresses whatever you send to save bandwidth. Feeding it an already-small file at the right resolution gives its encoder less to butcher.