Learn how to compress and reduce your photos file size on iPhone. Using the Compress Photos app, you can lower the size of PNG, JPEG, and HEIF images and reclaim storage space on your iPhone.
Although storage space gets cheaper and cheaper, it seems we always need and want more and more. It’s particularly true if you have a 16GB iPhone. If that’s the case, storage is even more precious to you, and you should try to make every MB count.
Along with music and videos, photos are probably one of the most notorious storage eaters on your iPhone. I know mine is filled with over 20 GB of pictures alone. If you’re in the same situation and want to save some storage space on your iPhone, one of your options is to decrease the file size of your iPhone pictures.
As always, there is an app for that. As a matter of fact, we developed our own! Called Compress Photos, the app’s only purpose is to lower the file size of PNG, JPEG, and HEIF images while maintaining the original dimension, unless you choose otherwise.
In this post, I will show you how to reduce pictures file size on iPhone using Compress Photos in order to regain some storage space on your device.
How to reduce photo file size on your iPhone
Before we get started, it must be noted that while Compress Photos will make the photos file size smaller and can reduce the actual dimensions of the pictures, this is not the app’s primary purpose. If that is what you are trying to do, check out our guide on how to resize an image on your iPhone.
1) Download Compress Photos for free from the App Store.
2) Launch the application and tap Select Photos to Compress. It will show all the photo albums available on your device. Open an album and select one or more photos that you want to compress, then tap Next.
3) This is now where you can tweak the level of compression. You have two compression levels available to you: image quality and image dimensions. The more you want to compress a photo file size, the lower the quality level should be. Likewise, you can choose to reduce the size of images to make their file size smaller.
For the purposes of this post, I set image quality at 75% and I also chose to reduce the file size to 80% of its actual dimension.
4) Tap the Compress button at the bottom. The app will work its magic to downsize the file size of your photos. The more pictures you have to process, the more time it will take. In my experience, the app was very fast at compressing each image, but of course, your mileage may vary.
5) Once the app has finished processing the pictures, they will be automatically saved to your Camera Roll. Conveniently, they will also be added to an automatically created album called Compressed Photos so you can find them easily.
6) You now have the option to delete original photos to save space on your device. Depending on your needs, you may select this option or tap Keep N Originals.
The benefit of compressing your photos
Shrinking the file size of your photos can save you tons of space on your device. Of course, to save that space, you will have to delete the original photos and empty the folder that contains deleted photos. And also, remember that the more you lower a picture file size, the worse the quality of this image will be.
In one instance, here is the size of these three photos, before and after shrinking them:
- Photo 1 was 2.3 MB, now 155 KB
- Photo 2 was 2.2 MB, now 293 KB
- Photo 3 was 1.7 MB, now 207 KB
In my experience with Compress Photos, I haven’t really noticed an obvious loss of quality, but if you have a good eye for these kinds of things, it might make a difference to you, especially as you lower the compression quality.
Your iPhone's camera is a powerful tool with a great resolution, multiple photo formats, and even built-in editing tools.
You can also use your Photos app to brighten or darken the image, crop the picture, and more.
One of these many tools includes the ability to resize or crop your photos, using your built-in Photos app, or another that you download from the App Store.
Here's how to do both, and resize your iPhone images however you like.
How to resize an image on an iPhone in Photos
It's possible to resize an image in the Photos app, with a variety of common dimensions available through the "Edit" menu.
1. Open the Photos app on your iPhone and the picture that you want to resize.
2. Tap Edit in the top right corner of the screen.
Tap "Edit" in the upper right corner.Stefan Ionescu/Insider
3. A new menu will open up, with a variety of editing tools. You'll want to tap the Crop icon at the bottom of the screen — it looks like two right angles intersecting.
Tap the "Crop" icon at the bottom.Stefan Ionescu/Insider
4. Tap the gray square icon in the top right part of the screen.
5. You're now in the dimension editing menu. At the bottom of the screen, you'll find a number of options.
You can change the picture's size in the dimensions editing menu.Stefan Ionescu/Insider
- Original: Reverts your image to its original dimensions.
- Freeform: Lets you crop the image however you'd like, by dragging your fingers from the sides of the image inward.
- Square: Cuts off the sides of your image so it can fit into a square.
After the Square option, there are a number of preset length-and-height ratios. When you tap one, the dimensions will change immediately.
6. When you're finished resizing the picture, tap Done to save your changes.
While all of these built-in iPhone image editing tools are decent, they can't change the image's resolution.
To ensure a given picture is the resolution you want, you'll need a third-party photo editing app.
How to resize an image on an iPhone using Image Size
Image Size is one of the best iPhone photo-resizing apps. As long as you're willing to view the occasional ad, it's totally free.
Once you install the Image Size app, here's how to use it:
1. Open the Image Size app on your iPhone.
2. Tap the photo icon in the top left part of the app screen – it looks like a mountain inside a box.
Tap the photo icon in Image Size to start resizing the photo.Stefan Ionescu/Insider
3. Grant the app access to your photos by tapping Allow Access to All Photos.
4. Tap the photo you want to resize in your Photos library.
5. Tap Choose in the bottom right corner.
Quick tip: You can also select the measurement format you wish to work with (from pixels to millimeters to inches).
You can change the measurements you want to work with.Stefan Ionescu/Insider
6. Enter the new size values of the picture in the Width and Height text boxes – you'll see the new size of the image displayed at the bottom of the screen.
Image Size allows you to control both the horizontal and vertical size of a photo.Stefan Ionescu/Insider
Note: There's a maximum width and height allowed. You can see this below the Width and Height text boxes – it will be something like ≤ 8000.
7. Once you are happy with your picture's shape and file size (and you have made any other edits within the app), tap the download icon – the arrow facing down to a line – in the bottom left corner of the app to save the resized image back to your Camera Roll.
Tap the download icon when you're done resizing the picture to save it to your Camera Roll.Stefan Ionescu/Insider
How to reduce image size on iPhone
When you reduce the photo's resolution using an app like Image Size, you'll effectively reduce its size as well.
In Image Size, you can see the size reduction by looking at the figure below the picture in the photo editing area.
Steven John
Freelance Writer
Steven John is a freelance writer living near New York City by way of 12 years in Los Angeles, four in Boston, and the first 18 near DC. When not writing or spending time with his wife and kids, he can occasionally be found climbing mountains. His writing is spread across the web, and his books can be found at www.stevenjohnbooks.com.
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