Compress Video for WhatsApp The real 100 MB limit
Almost every guide still says WhatsApp caps video at 16 MB. That figure is legacy. Standard in chat video sharing now goes up to 100 MB at around 720p on a fast connection, or 64 MB at around 480p on a slow one, and sending the same file as a document goes far higher again. This page has the WhatsApp preset, the real numbers side by side, and the reason a huge source file does not survive the trip anyway. The whole encode runs in this browser tab, so we never receive the clip.
- 100 MB at 720p
- Nothing uploaded
- 20 at a time
Drop videos or browse your device
MP4, MOV, M4V, MKV, AVI, WebM, WMV, TS, MTS, MPEG, 3GP, FLV and more
Up to 20 videos at once
Your video is processed in your browser's memory and never uploaded, so the ceiling is set by your device, not by us.
Aims for WhatsApp's standard video sharing size: up to 100 MB at around 720p, or 64 MB on slower connections.
Privacy-first. No uploads. If this helps, share it.
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This tool runs on this device for free. For a file over the device limit or a long video, the same tool runs on our servers, with up to 5 GB per file and 6 hours of video, faster, and with your files kept for up to 7 days, or as long as you choose with any pack or plan. From 1 credit a minute, with 10 credits free when you create an account.
- The clip never leaves your device
The encode is done by FFmpeg compiled to WebAssembly, running here in the page. WhatsApp chats are end to end encrypted, so routing the video through a stranger's upload based compressor first is the one step that would undo that. Here there is no such step.
- Matched to what WhatsApp sends
The WhatsApp preset tries to land under 100 MB and caps the frame at around 720p, which is roughly the shape WhatsApp aims for anyway. Handing it a file already close to that leaves its own re-encode much less to strip out.
- A holiday's worth in one go
Load up to 20 videos of up to 1.75 GB each and walk away. The browser build encodes one file at a time, so a long queue is slow but unattended, and the finished clips can be saved individually or as a zip.
How to compress a video for WhatsApp
WhatsApp's standard video sharing limit is up to 100 MB at around 720p, and 64 MB at around 480p when your connection is slow. The old 16 MB figure no longer applies to normal video messages. Add the clip, leave the preset on WhatsApp, and it is re-encoded in your browser to try to land under 100 MB at 720p. Nothing is sent to a server here, so the only upload is the one WhatsApp makes when you hit send.
- Add the clip
- Keep the WhatsApp preset
- Send the smaller MP4
Every WhatsApp video size limit, in one table
There is no single WhatsApp number, which is exactly why the ones people quote conflict. The limit you get depends on how you attach the file, which device you send it from and how fast your connection is at that moment.
| How you send it | Size limit | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Video message, fast connection | Up to 100 MB | The usual case on Wi-Fi or good mobile data, at around 720p. This is the size the preset on this page aims for. |
| Video message, slow connection | Up to 64 MB | WhatsApp drops to a lower ceiling and around 480p when the connection is poor, so the same file can send at home and fail on the road. |
| Sent as a document | Up to 2 GB | The real maximum, and the honest answer to what the biggest file WhatsApp takes is. The tradeoff is that it arrives as a file to download, with no inline player and no thumbnail. |
| iPhone share sheet from another app | 200 MB | Sharing to WhatsApp from Photos or another iOS app is documented at 200 MB for video, which is a large part of why quoted numbers disagree. |
| The 16 MB figure | Outdated | Legacy. It is still repeated across the web and in old help articles, but it is not the rule for ordinary video sharing today. |
WhatsApp adjusts these ceilings over time and rolls changes out per platform and per region, so treat the table as a snapshot rather than a contract. Last verified on 15 August 2026.
Where the 16 MB number came from
For years WhatsApp applied one small ceiling to media in a message, and 16 MB was the number people ran into. It suited an app built for cheap phones and metered data, and it was small enough that everyone hit it, so it landed in every forum answer and every how to guide of the period. Those answers have been copied ever since. Standard video sharing moved up to the 100 MB range a long time ago, but the old number kept circulating under its own steam.
If a guide tells you WhatsApp caps video at 16 MB, it is describing an older version of the app. You can check in a minute: a 40 MB clip sends as an ordinary video message today.
Two things decide what your recipient actually sees
The first is your connection at the moment you hit send, because that is what puts you on the 100 MB and 720p path or the 64 MB and 480p one. The second is that WhatsApp re-encodes the video it sends no matter what you feed it. A 4K clip straight off the camera roll does not reach anyone as a 4K clip, it reaches them as WhatsApp's own compressed copy, so the extra bulk buys your recipient nothing.
On a weak signal you land on the lower ceiling and the lower resolution, so a clip that sent fine yesterday can be refused today.
WhatsApp compresses on send whatever the size, so a bigger source file does not buy the person receiving it a better picture.
Pre-compressing at 720p hands that re-encode a clean, already efficient file to work from instead of a bloated one to hack down.
Compress a clip for WhatsApp in three steps
Nothing leaves the tab at any point.
Add your clips
Drop MP4, MOV, MKV, AVI or WebM files onto the page, or pick them from your device. The 1.75 GB per file ceiling is generous enough for long family recordings and footage straight off a camera card.
Leave the preset on WhatsApp
It aims for under 100 MB at around 720p. If you are on a patchy connection, or a send keeps failing, switch to Custom, set the target to 60 MB and choose 480p under resolution.
Download it, then attach it in chat
Out comes an H.264 MP4 with AAC audio, which plays inline in a chat on the phone apps and on desktop. The result card shows the finished size, so you know where you landed before you attach it.
Why compress before sending instead of letting WhatsApp do it
WhatsApp will happily take a large file and shrink it for you. The question is whether you want its automatic pass to be the only thing deciding how your video looks.
You choose the tradeoff instead of the app
You get no say in WhatsApp's own pass. It picks a target from your connection and applies it the same way to everything. Compressing beforehand is where you decide what to protect, the fine detail in a slow scenic shot or the smoothness of a fast one.
Shipping 900 MB to deliver 60 MB is wasted effort
Everything you attach is re-encoded before it reaches the other person, so the megabytes beyond what that pass keeps are handled, moved and paid for by you and then discarded. On mobile data that is a real slice of an allowance spent on detail nobody will ever see.
Compressing twice looks worse than compressing once
Run a clip through another compressor and WhatsApp compresses that result again, so the artifacts of the first pass get hardened by the second. One careful encode at 720p treats the picture better than two rough ones stacked.
A video message beats a 2 GB document
The document path takes far bigger files, but it lands as an attachment the other person has to download, with no preview and no autoplay. For anything you actually want watched in the thread, staying under the video limit is worth the compression.
Need an exact size rather than a WhatsApp preset? Compress video under 100 MB.
You picked an encrypted messenger for a reason
The clips people compress for WhatsApp are family videos, a recording of a doctor's appointment, footage of a leak for the landlord, a child's school play. Uploading that to an unknown compressor so it fits a chat window undoes the exact protection you chose WhatsApp for.
Here the encode runs in the page itself through WebAssembly, so there is no upload step, no queue on a server and no temporary copy of your file for anyone to keep or forget to delete. No email is asked for either, so there is no account with a history attached to it.
What that means in practice
- The clip goes straight from your device into your chat
- Neither the video nor its file name reaches us
- No account, no watermark, no sign in to download
- Your own CPU does the encoding, so long clips take time
WhatsApp video troubleshooting
Compress for a specific place
Some places have a hard size limit and a few quirks of their own. These pages open the compressor already set to that target, and explain what the limit actually is.
- Compress Video to 25 MB
Set a 25 MB target and find out what actually fits inside it. The encode runs in your browser.
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Open toolFrequently asked questions
WhatsApp's standard video sharing limit is up to 100 MB at around 720p on a fast connection, and up to 64 MB at around 480p on a slow one. Sent as a document instead, the limit is up to 2 GB.
WhatsApp video sharing limits last verified on 15 August 2026.