Compress image to 20 KB for free
Get any photo or signature under 20 KB with the best quality that fits. Built for exam portals, job forms and old government sites.
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Who needs a 20 KB image
20 KB is a tiny limit, and it shows up in a lot of places. Many Indian exam and recruitment portals, such as SSC, banking exams and state public service commissions, ask for a photo of roughly 20-50 KB and a signature of 10-20 KB. School portals, older HR systems and forums use similar caps for profile pictures. A phone photo is usually 2-6 MB, which is 100 to 300 times bigger. Simply re-saving it won't work; it has to be both compressed and downsized.
How to compress an image to 20 KB
- Drop your photo or scanned signature above. You can add up to 40 files at once.
- 20 KB is already filled in the Custom size field.
- Pick JPG unless the form says otherwise. Most exam portals accept only JPG or JPEG.
- Click Compress and download the file, or all files as a ZIP.
What happens to quality
First we search for the highest JPG quality that fits in 20 KB. For a phone photo, no quality setting will be small enough, so we then reduce the resolution step by step until it fits. Proportions are kept and the face stays recognizable. You'll end up with a small image a few hundred pixels across, which is what these forms expect.
For a better result, crop first. If the photo shows only your head and shoulders instead of the whole room, the 20 KB budget goes to the part that matters.
Signatures
For a signature, sign with a black pen on plain white paper, photograph it in daylight and crop tightly around the ink. Then compress to the size the form asks for: type 10 or 15 into Custom size if the limit is lower than 20 KB. A tightly cropped signature looks crisp even at 10 KB.
Strict byte counting
For us, 20 KB means no more than 20,000 bytes. Some sites count a kilobyte as 1,024 bytes, giving them a 20,480-byte limit, so our file passes with room to spare. The frustrating case where a file is a few bytes over and gets rejected can't happen, because we check the size after compressing.
When the form also wants pixel dimensions
Some forms specify both, for example 200×230 pixels and 20-50 KB. Make sure the photo meets the pixel requirement first. For ID-style photos with a plain background, the passport photo tool helps with framing. Then bring the file here to hit the size.
Free, private, unlimited
No sign-up, no watermark and no daily limit. Images are processed in your browser and never uploaded.
FAQ
Can I compress a photo to 20 KB without losing quality?
Not completely: 20 KB is too small for a full phone photo. We keep the best quality that fits and lower the resolution only as much as needed.
Will the file really be under 20 KB?
Yes, no more than 20,000 bytes. The size is checked after compression.
How do I compress a signature to 10 KB?
Type 10 into Custom size. Crop tightly around the signature first for the cleanest result.
Can I do several files at once?
Yes, up to 40, downloaded as one ZIP.