How to compress an image to 50 KB

Last updated: October 16, 2026

50 KB is a common limit for passport-style photos and scanned signatures on exam and application forms. It is small: about one hundredth of a phone photo. Here is how to get there without wrecking the picture, and without uploading your ID photo to a stranger's server.

Open the compressor

Free. No account. JPG, PNG and WebP.

Steps

Crop first in your photo editor. Cut the photo down to just what the form needs: your face and shoulders, or just the signature. This matters more at 50 KB than at any other size.
Open squeezelocal.com.
Under Target size, choose Custom size, type 50 and pick KB.
Drop the image into the box.
When the row says Under 50 KB, download it.

If the form gives exact dimensions in pixels, crop and resize to them first in your phone's or computer's photo editor. Forms that ask for 50 KB usually ask for small dimensions too, and at those sizes a file under 50 KB keeps plenty of detail.

Photo or signature: which format?

Photos: use JPG. It gets small with the least visible loss.
Signatures and scans: JPG works if the form asks for it. If you have a PNG of a signature on a white background, it usually compresses well too, because it has few colors.
Photos saved as PNG: these are hard to get to 50 KB. Save or export the photo as JPG first if you can.

What SqueezeLocal does to reach 50 KB

It lowers the quality step by step until the file fits. If that isn't enough, it also scales the image down. Cropping before you start means less scaling, which is why step 1 makes the biggest difference.

Questions

Some forms want 20 KB or 30 KB. Does that work?

Yes. Type any number from 10 KB up. Very small targets work best on tightly cropped images.

The form says my 49 KB file is too big.

Some sites count 1 KB as 1,000 bytes. Set the target to 47 KB to be safe.

Is my photo uploaded?

No. Everything runs in your browser. Nothing is sent to SqueezeLocal or anyone else.

Other sizes

Compress an image now