Compress Image to 20KB
Your images
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JPG, PNG, WebP · up to 10 at once
Compress & download
Add an image on the left to see the before/after comparison here.
Why compress to 20KB?
20KB is the smallest size most Indian recruitment portals ask for — usually for a scanned signature, and sometimes for the photo too. Unlike a 500KB or 1MB ceiling, a 20KB limit leaves almost no room for a full-resolution phone photo or a signature scanned at 300 DPI, so it has to be compressed deliberately rather than "just made smaller." Exam bodies keep the limit this tight because signature and photo fields sit inside a form that already carries dozens of other fields and attachments, and a 20KB cap keeps the whole submission light enough to process at scale during peak application windows.
| Form | Photo Size | Signature Size | Dimensions |
|---|---|---|---|
| SSC CGL | 20KB–50KB | 10KB–20KB | Photo 3.5×4.5cm · Signature ~140×60px |
| IBPS PO | 20KB–50KB | 10KB–20KB | Photo ~200×230px · Signature ~140×60px |
| UPSC | 20KB–300KB | 20KB–150KB | Photo ~300×300px |
| NEET | 10KB–200KB | 4KB–30KB | Passport-size photo |
| Passport (India) | Up to ~100KB | — | 4.5×3.5cm photo |
| PAN Card | Up to ~50KB | Up to ~50KB | Passport-size photo |
These are typical ranges recent application cycles have used, not a live feed from any exam body — limits change every recruitment cycle, so always confirm the exact figure on your form's own notification PDF before submitting. If it asks for 20KB specifically, this page's default target is already set for you.
How it works — quality vs. size, at the extreme end
At 20KB there is very little quality left to lose without a smart search — a fixed 80% quality setting (what most free compressors use) will either blow past 20KB on anything but a tiny thumbnail, or force a crude last-resort downscale that leaves visible blockiness. This tool runs a binary search on JPEG/WebP quality instead: it tries a setting, measures the output, and narrows in — up to 7 attempts — for the highest quality that still lands within 5% of 20KB. Signatures, which are mostly flat white with thin dark strokes, tend to reach 20KB at a much higher quality than a detailed photo does, and if quality alone still can't get a photo there, the tool steps its dimensions down 10% at a time and searches again.
Why on-device beats server upload
A signature is one of the more sensitive things you can upload — it's a usable specimen of your handwriting, sitting on whatever server received it. This tool never sends your signature or photo anywhere: the entire compression runs in your browser tab using the Canvas API, the same rendering engine that draws every image on the page. There is no upload wait either, which matters when a form has a submission deadline in minutes, not hours. Every pass through Canvas also strips EXIF metadata automatically — including GPS coordinates a phone camera may have embedded — with no separate step needed.
Supported formats
Upload JPG, PNG, or WebP. Output JPG, PNG, WebP, or leave it on Auto, which defaults to JPG — the format essentially every SSC, UPSC, IBPS, and railway recruitment portal names explicitly for both photo and signature fields. Auto only switches to WebP automatically if your source image has transparency and you've turned on Keep Transparency in Advanced, since JPEG has no alpha channel.
Need a different size?
Need a format change instead of a size change? Image to JPG and Image to WebP are coming soon — pick JPEG or WebP as the output format in Advanced above meanwhile.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will my signature or photo become unreadable at 20KB?
A scanned signature is mostly flat white with thin dark strokes, so it compresses far more cleanly than a photo — 20KB is usually enough to keep it crisp. For a face photo, this tool searches for the highest quality that still fits 20KB rather than using one fixed setting, so detail loss is as small as it can be at that size. If a form allows more (say 50KB), pick that target instead for a sharper result.
Does the form want exactly 20KB, or "20KB or less"?
Almost every exam and government form states a maximum — "not more than 20KB" — sometimes with a minimum too (e.g. "10KB–20KB"). This tool targets within 5% of 20KB and, by design, never exceeds it once it hits the target, so the output satisfies a maximum-size rule. If your form also has a minimum, check the result — it will usually clear it, since a heavily compressed 20KB file is rarely under 10KB.
What image formats does this accept, and what does it output?
Upload JPG, PNG, or WebP. Output JPG, PNG, or WebP, or leave it on "Auto" — Auto defaults to JPG, which is what virtually every SSC, UPSC, and railway recruitment portal expects for both photo and signature uploads.
Is there a limit on how many images I can compress?
You can compress up to 10 images in one batch — useful when a form wants both a photo and a signature compressed to the same 20KB ceiling. There is no hard limit on the size of the file you start with.
Is it private? My signature is sensitive.
Yes — compression runs entirely in your browser using the Canvas API. Your signature or photo is never uploaded to a server; it is read, resized, and re-encoded on your own device, and EXIF metadata (including any embedded GPS data) is stripped automatically in the process.