1Drop your videos into the box above, or pick them from your device — there is nothing to install and no account to create.
2Choose how hard to squeeze: a quality or bitrate target, and optionally smaller dimensions if size matters more to you than detail.
3Start the job and let the workers re-pack the file; your original is never modified in place.
4Compare the new size against the original, then download the compressed Video file.
Compress Video FAQ
How does Compress Video actually make the file smaller?
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Concretely, each file is probed first, then re-encoded at the CRF you set with the picture optionally scaled, so a mixed batch of containers is handled per file rather than assumed uniform. Nothing about it depends on you installing software: the job runs server-side and hands back a finished file.
How much smaller will my file get?
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Almost entirely by the bitrate you choose and by how much the picture moves. A screen recording or a locked-off talking head compresses enormously, because most of each frame is identical to the one before it; handheld footage, grain, rain and confetti are the worst cases. Once the obvious wins are gone, lowering the resolution saves far more than lowering the quality further.
Does the format of my file change how much I can save?
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Very much so. this format is read and written by the same streaming pipeline as everything else we support. That determines both the headroom available and whether the saving costs you anything in fidelity.
Is there anything specific to Video I should know before compressing?
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Yes — the container and codec are probed before anything runs, so mixed uploads in one batch are handled per file. It is worth knowing before you overwrite an original you might need again.
What is the most common mistake when compressing videos?
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Compressing the same file repeatedly. Each pass on a lossy format is a fresh generation of loss and the savings shrink while the damage accumulates. Go from the original to your target in one step, and keep the original.
What do I get back, and can I control the trade-off?
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A single compressed file per input, at a quality or bitrate level you choose rather than a fixed default. If the result is still too large, lowering the resolution or trimming the duration does far more than pushing the quality setting further down.
Which video formats does Compress Video accept?
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MP4, MOV, MKV, WebM, AVI, WMV, FLV, 3GP, M4V, MPEG and MPG. Each file is probed for its real container and codec before anything runs, so a mixed batch is handled correctly file by file.
Is there a file size limit on Compress Video?
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Yes: free accounts process video up to 1 GiB per file whichever container you brought; ffmpeg with x264, x265 and libvpx does the encoding. It is high enough that upload speed is usually the binding constraint rather than the cap itself.
Will Compress Video lower the quality of my videos?
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Only if the operation requires re-drawing frames. Container-level and timeline-level work is done as a stream copy, which is bit-identical to the source and finishes in seconds. Anything that must re-encode does so at a quality level you choose.
Can I run Compress Video on several videos at once?
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Yes, and it matters here more than anywhere else — video jobs run in minutes, so queueing the batch in parallel is the difference between one wait and several.
What happens to audio, subtitle and chapter tracks?
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They are carried across wherever the target container can hold them, including multiple audio languages, embedded subtitles and chapter markers, rather than silently keeping only the first track of each.
Does Compress Video cost anything?
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No. Compress Video is free without an account, and the output has no watermark, corner logo or intro card. Uploaded video is deleted from the workers shortly after the job completes.
