How to Use a File Size Decreaser on Photos, PDFs, Video and Office Files

A file size decreaser takes a file that is too big to email, upload or store and gives you a smaller copy of it. On Filevale, Reduce File Size does this for photos, PDFs, videos, audio, Word and Excel documents and archives in one place, right in your browser. This guide shows how to use it, what actually changes in each type of file, and what to do when a file refuses to get smaller.

Decrease any file in your browser

1. Open Reduce File Size and drop your file on the page, or click to browse. You can add several at once.
2. Adjust the quality if you like.
3. Click Reduce. Everything happens on your device.
4. Download the smaller file. If it is still too big, or the quality dropped too far, change the options and run it again on the same file.

The tool accepts JPG, PNG, WEBP, HEIC, PDF, MP4, MOV, M4V, WEBM, MP3, WAV, M4A, FLAC, AAC, OGG, DOCX, DOC, XLSX, XLS, PPTX, RTF, ZIP, RAR, 7Z, TAR, GZ and TAR.GZ files. Your original is never touched: you get a new copy, and nothing is uploaded to a server.

What happens to each type of file

Each type of file is made smaller in a different way:

• Photos are re-encoded as JPEG or WebP at the quality you pick.
• PDFs have their pages recompressed.
• Videos become H.264 at a lower bitrate and up to 1280 px wide.
• Audio becomes MP3.
• Word, Excel and PowerPoint files become a compressed PDF. Keep the original if you still need to edit the document.
• ZIP, RAR, 7Z and TAR archives are re-packed as a ZIP with maximum compression.

If you would rather work with one type at a time, the dedicated tools are on the PDF tools and video and audio tools pages, including Compress PDF, Compress Video and Compress Audio.

Find out what makes a PDF heavy

Before you squeeze a big PDF, it helps to know why it is big. PDF Size Breakdown shows which pages and what content make the file heavy, in a page-by-page table on the page. Click Analyze, then read the report, copy it, or save it as a text file. Nothing in your PDF is changed. If a few pages hold most of the weight, removing them with Delete PDF Pages can help as much as compression.

When a file won't get smaller

Some files are already as small as they can be, such as a well-compressed JPEG or a ZIP full of photos. In that case Reduce File Size tells you so and keeps the original, instead of handing you a bigger file. A few things that still work:

• Lower the quality a step and run the file again.
• Split a long PDF into parts with Split PDF, or send only the pages that matter with Extract PDF Pages.
• Share fewer files. Pack the ones you really need into one archive with Create ZIP.

Filevale can't resize or crop images, and it can't trim videos, so if you need a shorter clip or a smaller picture area, do that first in your phone's or computer's own photo or video editor. For more ideas on hitting a specific limit, see How to Get a File Under a Size Limit.

Built-in options on your computer

On a Mac, Preview can save a PDF with the Reduce File Size filter under File → Export, which is fine for a quick one-off. On Windows, right-clicking files and choosing Send to → Compressed (zipped) folder packs them into a ZIP, which helps with documents but does little for photos and videos that are already compressed.

Frequently asked questions