Compress an image to 20 KB
Add your image and it comes back under 20 KB. This is a hard target, so read the note below on what to expect before you submit the result to anything important.
Compress to 20 KB
20 KB is small enough that dimensions have to give
There is a floor to how few bytes a JPEG needs, and it scales with pixel count. Below roughly 0.15 bytes per pixel, JPEG stops producing anything recognisable. For a 20 KB budget that works out to an upper bound somewhere around 400 by 350 pixels for a photograph.
So a tool that promises 20 KB while keeping your original dimensions is either not hitting 20 KB or is returning something you would not want to submit. This one reduces dimensions and tells you it did, in the result line.
Signatures compress far better than faces
If what you need at 20 KB is a scanned signature, you are in luck: a signature is mostly white with a thin dark stroke, and that compresses extremely well. A signature can often stay at full dimensions and still land in single-digit kilobytes.
A face at 20 KB is a different matter. It will be soft, and skin tone may band slightly. It remains perfectly identifiable, which is what the form actually needs — but do not expect to print it.
Practical steps for a 20 KB result
The most effective thing you can do is remove pixels the target does not need before compressing.
- Crop tightly. For a headshot, crop to head and shoulders — background is the most expensive thing in the frame.
- For a signature, crop to the ink and nothing else, then compress. Whitespace is cheap but not free.
- Try WebP output if the form accepts it. At this size WebP holds detail visibly better than JPEG.
- If the result is unusable, ask whether the limit really is 20 KB. It is often the minimum in a 20-to-100 KB range that people misread as a maximum.
Questions people ask
Why does my 20 KB photo look blurry?
Because 20 KB is roughly one two-hundredth of a normal phone photo. The tool keeps as much as physically fits; beyond that point the information simply cannot be stored. Cropping before compressing is the single biggest improvement available.
Is 20 KB really a common requirement?
It is common in examination and government application forms, usually for a signature field or a small thumbnail photo. Larger photo fields on the same form typically allow 50 to 100 KB.
Can I compress a PDF to 20 KB here?
No. This tool handles images only. A scanned page saved as an image can be compressed here; an actual PDF file cannot.
The form wants black and white. Does that help the size?
Considerably, for text and signatures. Converting a signature scan to greyscale before compressing often halves the size at the same visual quality.
Other sizes and tools
Last reviewed 2026-09-04. Also searched as: image compressor to 20kb, photo compressor to 20kb, compress photo to 20kb, reduce image size to 20kb.