Compress Images for Email Smaller Files, Faster Delivery
Hit email attachment limits with ease. CompressVault reduces image file sizes privately in your browser, strips personal EXIF metadata, and lets you download a ZIP — ready to attach in seconds.
Compress images for emailMeet Attachment Limits
Compress images to fit under Gmail's 25 MB, Outlook's 20 MB, or any custom size target — with full quality control.
EXIF Metadata Stripped
GPS location, camera model, timestamps, and serial numbers are automatically removed during compression — protecting your privacy before you share.
Batch ZIP Download
Compress multiple images at once and download them all as a single ZIP. Attach the ZIP directly to your email.
Email attachment size limits by provider
- Gmail — 25 MB total per email (including all attachments)
- Outlook / Hotmail — 20 MB per email
- Yahoo Mail — 25 MB per email
- Apple Mail — 20 MB per email (Mail Drop available for larger files)
- Corporate mail servers — typically 10–15 MB; check with your IT team
- Practical tip: keep individual image attachments under 3 MB for reliable delivery on all clients
Compress images for email in 3 steps
- 1
Drop your images
Select JPEG, PNG, WebP, or HEIC files. Drag and drop multiple images at once — your files stay in your browser and are never uploaded.
- 2
Set quality and compress
Adjust the quality slider for each image or apply settings globally. EXIF data is stripped automatically. Watch file sizes drop in real time.
- 3
Download and attach
Download individual images or grab the ZIP file. Open your email client, attach the file, and send — all under the size limit.
Zero uploads, zero tracking
CompressVault runs 100% in your browser using the Canvas API. Your images are never sent to any server — not even ours. No account required, no usage limits, no ads.
How small does an image really need to be to email it reliably?
Email attachment limits are confusing because every provider sets their own number and every recipient sits behind a different mail server with its own rules. Gmail caps outgoing mail at 25 MB total — and that 25 MB has to cover every attachment plus the encoding overhead, which inflates the real file size by roughly a third. Outlook draws the line at 20 MB, Yahoo at 25 MB, Apple Mail at 20 MB before Mail Drop kicks in. Many corporate Exchange servers reject anything above 10 MB. The safest target is to keep individual photos under about 3 MB so you never have to worry about which inbox is on the other end.
CompressVault makes hitting those targets easy because you see the predicted output size update live as you move the quality slider. A typical 8 MB JPEG drops to roughly 1.5 MB at 80 percent quality with no visible loss at the size most recipients will view it. Convert the same file to WebP and you can usually halve it again. If you have a stack of holiday photos to send, the batch view applies your quality setting to every image at once, then bundles the results into a single ZIP that you can attach in one drag.
There is a privacy dimension to emailing photos that almost no one thinks about. Pictures taken on a phone carry EXIF metadata: precise GPS coordinates, the device serial number, the exact timestamp, and often the camera settings. When you forward those photos to a colleague, a real-estate agent or a stranger online, all of that personal data goes with them. Because CompressVault re-encodes through the Canvas API — which only carries pixels — every exported file is automatically stripped of EXIF, IPTC and XMP tags. You get a clean image to share without any extra steps.
For larger sends, batching plus ZIP is the workflow that scales. Drop ten or twenty images, set a global quality, let the queue process them in parallel, and click Export All. The browser compresses each file locally, packages them into a single archive, and downloads the ZIP to your machine. Most modern mail clients accept ZIP attachments natively, and recipients on Windows, macOS, iOS and Android can all open them without extra software. It is a simple way to fit a whole event's worth of photos under a single attachment limit.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the attachment size limit for email?
Gmail allows up to 25 MB per email, Outlook 20 MB, Yahoo Mail 25 MB, and Apple Mail up to 20 MB. Most recipients experience issues with attachments larger than 5–10 MB, so compressing images before attaching is strongly recommended.
Will compressing an image for email reduce its quality visibly?
Not noticeably at moderate compression settings. CompressVault lets you control quality from 1–100%. For email, a quality setting of 75–85% typically reduces JPEG file size by 50–70% with no visible loss at normal viewing sizes.
Does CompressVault remove EXIF metadata from images sent by email?
Yes. CompressVault automatically strips all EXIF metadata — including GPS location, camera model, serial number, and timestamps — during the compression process. This protects your privacy when sharing images.
Can I compress multiple images for email at once?
Yes. Drop as many images as you need into CompressVault, compress them all at once, and download a single ZIP file. Attach the ZIP to your email — most email clients support ZIP attachments.
Is my email content or images stored anywhere?
No. CompressVault processes images entirely in your browser. Your images are never uploaded to any server, and nothing is stored beyond your current browser session.
Ready to compress your images?
Free, private, and unlimited — no sign-up needed.
Compress images for email