Compress a video to 16 MB
Sixteen megabytes is the video attachment ceiling on WhatsApp in most regions, and it is the one size target where the platform does something to your file after you send it. That changes the right strategy.
Drop your video here
or click to browse — MP4, MKV, MOV, WebM, AVI and more
The compressor above is already set to a 16 MB ceiling. It solves the bitrate from the length of your clip, encodes on your own CPU, weighs what came out, and runs again at a corrected bitrate if the first pass missed 16 MB. Nothing is uploaded.
The 16 MB WhatsApp ceiling
WhatsApp caps videos sent through the normal media picker at around 16 MB in most regions. Exceed it and the app either refuses the send or silently trims the clip, which is worse — you find out when the recipient asks why the video stops halfway.
The limit applies to the file as it is sent. Compressing to a 15 MB ceiling here and sending that gives you a comfortable margin, and the tool will show you exactly what bitrate 15 or 16 MB buys for your clip length before it starts.
What fits in 16 MB
Sixteen megabytes is the first target on this site where 720p is genuinely usable for a clip of ordinary length rather than just a short one. The generated table below shows the video bitrate budget at each duration, audio already subtracted.
| Clip length | Video bitrate budget | Realistic resolution |
|---|---|---|
| 15 seconds | 8,461 kbps | 1080p or original |
| 30 seconds | 4,166 kbps | 1080p |
| 1 minute | 2,019 kbps | 1080p |
| 2 minutes | 945 kbps | 720p |
| 5 minutes | 333 kbps | 360p |
| 10 minutes | 150 kbps | 360p |
| 30 minutes | — | Not viable |
Work the same arithmetic for any size with the video file size calculator.
The double-encode problem, and how to avoid it
WhatsApp re-compresses videos it sends through the media picker. That means your carefully compressed 15 MB file is decoded and encoded again on the way, and generational loss compounds: the second encoder is working from an image that already has the first encoder's artefacts baked into it, so it preserves those artefacts and adds its own.
There is a way around it. Sending the video as a document rather than as a video skips the re-encode entirely and allows a far larger file. The trade-off is that the recipient sees a file to download rather than an inline player with a thumbnail, and on some devices it will not play until they open it in another app. For anything where quality matters more than convenience — a clip you shot for a client, footage someone needs to actually look at — sending as a document is the better call.
If you are sending through the media picker anyway, compress gently. Aim for the top of what fits rather than the smallest file you can make, because whatever quality you hand over is the ceiling on what the recipient can possibly receive.
Settings for a WhatsApp-bound clip
Phone footage is the usual input here, and phone footage has two properties worth knowing about. It is often recorded at a high bitrate for its resolution, because phones optimise for capture quality rather than file size, so there is a lot of slack to remove before anything is visible. And newer iPhones record HEVC rather than H.264, which some Android devices and older phones will not decode.
Compressing to MP4 here re-encodes to H.264, which fixes the compatibility problem as a side effect. Leave the format on MP4, set the target to 15 MB, and drop the resolution to 720p if the clip runs over about a minute. The MOV page covers iPhone recordings in more detail.
Questions about the 16 MB target
What is the WhatsApp video size limit?
Around 16 MB for videos sent through the media picker in most regions. Files sent as documents are allowed to be far larger — up to 2 GB — but arrive as a download rather than an inline video. Limits do change, so check in the app if you are close to the edge.
Why does my video look bad on WhatsApp even after compressing?
Because WhatsApp compresses it again after you send it. The second encode works from your already-compressed image, so both sets of artefacts survive. Compress gently to the top of the 16 MB budget rather than to the smallest possible file, or send the video as a document to skip the re-encode.
Does compressing here upload my video to WhatsApp or anywhere else?
No. The compression happens inside this browser tab using FFmpeg compiled to WebAssembly. The file is never transmitted — you download the result and send it yourself.
Other size targets
- Compress to 5 MB The tightest ceiling here. Past about three minutes it stops being possible at all.
- Compress to 8 MB The classic chat and forum attachment wall. Tight enough that duration decides everything.
- Compress to 10 MB The default cap on a huge number of upload forms — and 25% more room than 8 MB.
- Compress to 20 MB The default in helpdesks, CMS media libraries and upload widgets. Rarely announced.
- Compress to 25 MB The Gmail attachment limit — with the base64 overhead that makes 25 MB less than it looks.
- Compress to 50 MB Roomy enough that 1080p survives on short clips. The first target that stops hurting.
- Compress to 100 MB Generous enough for real 1080p. Also GitHub's hard per-file push limit.
- Compress to 200 MB Big enough that the real question is your viewer's patience, not the platform's limit.
- Compress to 500 MB Discord Nitro's per-file ceiling, and the point where the browser becomes the bottleneck.
Compressing for a specific platform instead? Discord, WhatsApp and email each have their own page.
Or start from the file you have. Whether 16 MB is a stretch or a formality depends on what is already inside the container: MP4 , MOV , MKV , WebM , AVI , WMV , FLV , M4V and MTS / M2TS .