Compress Video for Email
Fit a 25 MB attachment limit without a cloud link. Nothing is uploaded.
The compressor opens with the target set to 25 MB, the attachment limit shared by Gmail, Outlook.com and most corporate mail servers. Drop the video, compress, attach.
Open the compressor → Opens the compressor with the target preset to 25 MB.- 100% freeNo account, no daily quota, no paid tier.
- Nothing is uploadedFiles are processed on your device and never reach a server.
- No catch on the outputNo watermark, no forced downscaling, no size cap.
- Updated in the openEvery fix and every new tool is written down on the changelog page.
Email attachment limits, by provider
Gmail and Outlook.com stop at 25 MB per message; iCloud Mail at 20 MB; Yahoo at 25 MB; most Exchange and Google Workspace accounts are configured somewhere between 10 and 25 MB, and the recipient's server has its own limit that you cannot see. Above the limit, Gmail silently replaces the attachment with a Google Drive link and Outlook offers OneDrive — which works, but it means the recipient needs to click through, the file may expire, and in many companies external cloud links are blocked or flagged. A real attachment is still the most reliable way to get a video to someone.
A minute of phone video is 60–120 MB, so nearly every clip needs to be made smaller first. The good news is that email video is usually watched once, on a laptop, in a small window: 720p at a modest bitrate looks perfectly fine there and fits a couple of minutes into 25 MB.
How this page sets things up
The target is 25 MB with a small margin, since mail servers count the encoded attachment (which is about a third larger than the file) and reject anything over. If your provider's limit is 20 MB or 10 MB, type that number into the size box. The compressor picks the highest bitrate that fits the clip's length and drops the resolution one step at a time only when it has to, telling you what it chose in the estimate line. For a 90-second clip you typically keep 1080p; at five minutes you get 720p; a 20-minute recording lands at 480p, which is the point where a cloud link starts to make more sense than an attachment.
Nothing leaves your computer: the file is read from disk, compressed by your device's hardware encoder and saved back to disk. That matters for the kind of video people email — a site walkthrough, a screen recording of a bug, a family clip — and it also means there is no waiting for an upload before the compression can even start.
Getting a better result in less space
Cut first, then compress: Trim Video ↗ removes the ten seconds of desk at the start of a screen recording, and every second removed is bitrate returned to the rest. Screen recordings and talking-head videos compress much better than sport or handheld footage, so the same 25 MB goes a lot further. If the sound matters more than the picture (a recorded call, a lecture), pick Small quality and keep the audio at 128 kbps in Advanced. If the picture matters more, remove the audio entirely and put the whole budget into video. And if the recipient only needs to see one moment, Video to Image ↗ turns it into a screenshot that any mail client shows inline.
Frequently asked questions
Gmail says 25 MB but rejected my 24 MB video. Why?
Attachments are Base64-encoded in transit, which adds about 33%. Gmail measures the message, not the file, so the practical limit is closer to 18–19 MB of actual file. Type 18 in the size box to be safe.
Is 25 MB enough for a decent-looking video?
For a couple of minutes at 720p, yes — comparable to a standard-definition streaming quality. For longer, the resolution has to drop; past ten minutes a shared link is the better tool.
Should I send MP4 or something else?
MP4 with H.264, which is the default here. It opens in every mail client, phone and desktop player without any extra software.
Does the recipient need this site?
No. The output is an ordinary video file. Nothing about it depends on this page.