Compress
Make files smaller
Five image formats and PDFs, compressed on your own device. Set a quality, or give it an exact size to hit and let it find the quality for you. For a whole folder at once, use the bulk compressor.
BriskFile compresses JPEG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, JPEG XL and PDF files. Formats it cannot write — HEIC, GIF, BMP, TIFF and ICO — have to be converted rather than compressed.
Images
- JPEG Quality 82 is where most photographs stop looking different from the original. Going to 95 typically doubles the file for a difference you cannot see without pixel-peeping.
- PNG Optimisation level 4 is a good default. Level 6 takes several times longer for a percent or two more, which is only worth it for images you serve millions of times.
- WebP WebP degrades more gracefully than JPEG. Quality 70 is usable where a JPEG at 70 would show visible blocking.
- AVIF AVIF degrades far more gracefully than JPEG. Quality 50–60 is genuinely usable, which is where its size advantage really shows.
- JPEG XL JXL is at its best for archives, where size and fidelity matter and you control what opens the file.
Documents
What cannot be compressed in place
BriskFile reads ten image formats but writes five. Compression means re-encoding a file into its own format, so it only works for the five it can write: JPEG, PNG, WebP, AVIF and JPEG XL.
For HEIC, GIF, BMP, TIFF and ICO there is no encoder, so the file must change format. Rather than do that quietly and call it compression, BriskFile sends you to the conversion page — which is the better answer regardless. A photograph trapped in a GIF is limited to 256 colours and enormous; as a JPEG it is smaller and looks better. A TIFF scan routinely drops by 95%.
HEIC has an additional reason: the HEVC codec inside it is patent-encumbered, which is precisely why so little software can write one. See HEIC to JPG for what to do with iPhone photos.
Compressing to a specific limit
Upload forms, government portals and job applications routinely demand a file "under 200KB" and reject anything over, without saying by how much. Tick Aim for a specific file size on any compress page and BriskFile searches quality until it fits, re-encoding up to eight times.
The result always lands under your limit rather than near it. Both are equally rejected, so "close" is not a useful outcome.
Straight to a size limit
The limits forms ask for most often, each with the number already filled in.
- Compress an image to 50KB Drop a photo and it comes back under 50KB. Nothing is uploaded, and the result still looks like a photograph.
- Compress an image to 20KB Drop a photo and it comes back under 20KB. Nothing is uploaded, and the dimensions are reduced so it stays usable.
- Compress a JPG to 100KB Drop a JPG and it comes back under 100KB, at the highest quality that fits.
- Compress a PDF to 100KB A genuinely tight budget. The lossless route is tried first, so text stays selectable wherever that is enough.
- Compress a PDF to 200KB Frequently reachable on a short scan by restructuring alone, without rendering a single page.
Questions
Which file types can BriskFile compress?
JPEG, PNG, WebP, AVIF and JPEG XL images, and PDFs. Those are the formats BriskFile can write, so they are the ones it can shrink while leaving the file type unchanged.
Can you compress a HEIC, GIF, BMP or TIFF?
Not while keeping the same format — BriskFile has no encoder for them, so the file has to become something else. That is a conversion, not compression, and it is nearly always the right answer anyway: a GIF photograph becomes dramatically smaller as a JPEG, and a TIFF scan smaller still.
For HEIC specifically there is a further reason: the underlying codec is patent-encumbered, which is exactly why so little software can write it.
How do I compress to an exact file size?
Every compress page has an "Aim for a specific file size" option. BriskFile searches for the highest quality that still fits under your limit and always lands under it, rather than near it — a file 3KB over a form’s cap is rejected just as firmly as one 3MB over.
Is anything uploaded?
No. Compression runs in your browser on your own processor, which you can confirm in the Network tab or by disconnecting from the internet entirely.