How to resize a photo to 20 KB on your phone (no app)

Most phone photos are 2–5 MB, which is a hundred times bigger than a 20 KB limit. You don’t need an app to shrink them.

Steps

  1. Open Resize image to 20 KB in Chrome or Safari.
  2. Tap Choose a photo and pick it from your gallery. On iPhone, choose “Photo Library” and not “Take Photo”, so you can crop first in the Photos app.
  3. If your form gives pixel sizes (for example 200 × 230), type them into Width and Height.
  4. If the form says “between 10 KB and 20 KB”, set Min KB to 10. Otherwise leave it at 0.
  5. Tap Download JPG. The file goes into Downloads (Android) or Files (iPhone), and the form’s upload button can pick it from there.

If the photo looks blurry

At 20 KB, a large pixel size gets compressed hard. Use the smaller pixel size your form allows and crop tightly to head and shoulders. Fewer pixels per KB means a sharper picture.

iPhone HEIC photos

If your browser can’t open the photo, go to Settings › Camera › Formats and pick “Most Compatible”, or take a screenshot of the photo and use that.