The 200 KB limit, explained
200 KB sits in a sweet spot. It’s generous enough for a decent headshot, but strict enough that no phone photo fits as-is. You’ll meet it on:
- Job portals and applicant tracking systems asking for a photo or a scanned certificate
- Profile pictures on company directories, learning platforms and community sites
- Membership and registration forms for clubs, gyms and events
- Small attachment limits on older web forms
An iPhone HEIC is usually a few megabytes, and once converted to JPG it grows further. So you need a real compression step, not just a format change.
How the tool gets you under 200 KB
We run a quick search for the highest JPG (or WebP) quality that fits under 200,000 bytes, with a floor of about 55 so faces never turn to mush. Only if quality alone falls short do we scale the photo down, and only by as much as needed.
The start quality is 85, so photos that are already small, like a tight crop, stay crisp and often fit without any resizing at all.
Making a headshot that recruiters actually see well
Crop to head and shoulders
A tightly framed face uses the 200 KB budget on what matters. Use Crop HEIC with a 1:1 or 4:5 preset, then come back here.
Fix sideways photos before uploading
If your selfie appears rotated on the portal, run it through Rotate HEIC first. Upright pixels look right everywhere.
Mind the metadata
Your photo carries details such as date and camera model, and GPS location is removed by default. Want a completely clean file for a job application? Set Metadata to “remove everything”, or use Remove HEIC metadata.
Quick sizing guide
| Use | Suggested crop | Fits in 200 KB? |
|---|---|---|
| Profile photo | 1:1 square | Easily |
| CV headshot | 4:5 portrait | Easily |
| Certificate photo | Full page | Usually, with some downscaling |
| Full-size landscape photo | None | Only after downscaling |
No account, no upload, no wait
The compression happens on your own device, so there’s no upload queue and no copy of your face on someone else’s server. Once the page is cached, it even works without a connection.