How to shrink a video for WhatsApp

Step by step

1. Trim first if you can. Open Trim Video, scrub to the part you want, click Set start here and Set end here, and click Trim video. Cutting 30 seconds of dead footage saves more than any compression setting.
2. Open Compress Video. Go to the Compress Video tool. The first visit downloads the FFmpeg engine, about 30 MB, which is cached for next time.
3. Drop the video in. Drag the clip onto the drop zone. The tool shows its resolution, duration and current size.
4. Choose Compression and Max resolution. Pick Medium (CRF 30, good for sharing) and set Max resolution to 720p. That pairing is the best balance for a phone screen. Use Strong (CRF 34, smallest) and 480p only if you are still over 16 MB.
5. Click Compress video. Encoding runs at about real time to 3x real time for 720p on a recent laptop. The result panel shows the new size next to the original.
6. Download and send. Click Download, then send the file in WhatsApp as a normal video. If it is still over 16 MB, send it as a document instead using the paperclip and Document.

What is the WhatsApp video size limit?

WhatsApp treats a video differently depending on how you send it. Sent as media, through the camera or gallery button, the app re-compresses the video on your phone before it goes out and has historically capped the result at 16 MB, which is why long clips arrive looking blurry. Sent as a document, through the paperclip and Document, the file travels untouched and the limit has been 2 GB since 2022.

So you have two routes. Compress the video yourself so that it survives the media path under 16 MB and looks the way you intended, or send the original as a document and accept that the recipient has to tap to download rather than see it inline.

How much will Compress Video shrink my clip?

The tool encodes with H.264 at a constant quality level: CRF 26 for Light, 30 for Medium and 34 for Strong, with audio at AAC 96 kbps. The resolution cap does the rest; a 4K phone clip has nine times the pixels of 720p. Medium at 720p typically saves 50 to 80 percent, and on a 4K source it is more. The table shows a 45 second iPhone clip at each setting.

Which setting should I use?

For almost everything headed to WhatsApp, Medium at 720p. Phone screens are 720p to 1080p wide and the chat view is smaller still, so the extra resolution is thrown away on arrival. Light at 1080p is for a clip you want to look sharp on a TV via the recipient's casting. Strong at 480p is the fallback for a long clip that must go as media, and it still looks acceptable for a child's football match or a quick walkthrough of a flat.

Should I send the video as a document instead?

If quality matters more than convenience, yes. A document arrives exactly as you sent it, so a wedding clip or an estate agent's walkthrough keeps every pixel. The downsides are that it does not play inline, the recipient must have space and signal to download the whole file, and the file lands in their Downloads rather than their camera roll. For a family group chat, compressing and sending as media is friendlier.

Why does WhatsApp make my video blurry?

Because its own compressor is aggressive and you cannot adjust it. It lowers resolution and bitrate until the clip fits under its cap, and a long 4K clip has a lot of fitting to do. When you compress beforehand with Medium at 720p, WhatsApp finds a file that is already small and either passes it through or compresses it only lightly, so the version your contact sees is the one you chose.

Frequently asked questions