By Bruce Li · Founder of PicWay. A heavy iPhone user with more than 100,000 photos, he tests every feature on a real iPhone.
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How to do it
Choose the video
Tap the box above and pick a MOV or MP4 from your iPhone or camera. Once it reads the file, the page shows its size, resolution, frame rate and format.
Pick the settings
Balanced keeps the picture sharp. Smallest suits chat and email. Choose the 1080p option (long side up to 1920 pixels) or the 720p option (up to 1280 pixels) to shrink it further.
Compress and download
Press Compress and keep the tab open until it finishes. Then download the MP4.
The short answer
This is a free online tool for people who need to make an iPhone video smaller, and it needs no sign-up. Choose the video on this page, pick Balanced or Smallest and a maximum resolution, then press Compress. The page converts it to an H.264 MP4 while it reads the file, so it doesn’t load the whole video into memory first. It needs a browser with WebCodecs. If yours doesn’t have it, the page says so.
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What the settings do
Balanced targets a bitrate below the original, with a minimum so the picture keeps its detail. Smallest cuts the bitrate further. Resolution can limit the long side to 1920 pixels (the 1080p option) or 1280 pixels (the 720p option). The picture is scaled down in proportion and never scaled up, so a video already within the limit isn’t resized. For a 16:9 landscape video that means at most 1920 × 1080 or 1280 × 720; for other shapes, go by the size the result shows. The picture’s rotation is kept, so a portrait iPhone video stays upright.
Where the work happens when you compress a video online
The video is read and re-encoded by your browser, inside this page. The new file is an H.264 MP4.
Limits to know about
One video at a time. iPhone and iPad accept up to 300 MB, and computers up to 2 GB. A 4K video takes a while, because the device is doing the encoding, so keep the tab open. An HDR video is encoded as a standard 8-bit video. If the page says it can’t compress in your browser, see PicWay on iPhone below.
Compress on your iPhone with PicWay
PicWay compresses videos on the phone with two levels, Standard compression and Strong compression. Standard looks nearly identical, and Strong compresses harder. Check the new version before you delete the original; and if compressing doesn’t save enough space, the original isn’t deleted at all. The guide to compressing video for email has the steps.
Your browser does the work, inside this page. Your browser has built-in video decoders and encoders, called WebCodecs. The page reads the file piece by piece, decodes each frame, encodes it again as H.264 at a lower bitrate, and packs the result into an MP4. The work happens in your browser, so it takes longer on a long or 4K video.
On iPhone and iPad the limit is 300 MB, and on a computer it is 2 GB. On iPhone and iPad this page accepts videos up to 300 MB. On a computer the limit is 2 GB. See PicWay on iPhone below for another option.
This page needs the WebCodecs video tools. It suggests Safari on iPhone with iOS 16.4 or later, or an up-to-date Chrome or Edge on a computer. A browser without them can’t run this page, and PicWay on iPhone, described below, is another route.
Any re-encode loses some detail. Balanced aims to stay close to the original and still save space, and Smallest trades more detail for size. Check the new video before you delete the original. An HDR (10-bit) video is encoded as a standard 8-bit video, so colors can look flatter.
AAC audio, which iPhones record, is copied into the new file without re-encoding. A video with a different audio format would lose its sound, and the page tells you when that happens.
Yes. Keep the original size, or limit the long side to 1920 pixels (the 1080p option) or 1280 pixels (the 720p option). The picture is scaled down in proportion and never scaled up, so a video already within the limit keeps its size. A 16:9 landscape video ends up at most 1920 × 1080 or 1280 × 720; for other shapes, go by the size the result shows. The picture’s rotation is kept.