Exam, recruitment and government application forms often refuse any photo or signature over 20 KB. Add your image and this page finds the highest quality that fits under 20 KB, reducing the pixel size only if it has to. It all happens in your browser, so your photo is never uploaded.
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A 20 KB limit is typical of online application forms for competitive exams, public-sector recruitment, scholarships, university admissions and many government services. They usually ask for two uploads: a passport-style photograph, often between 10 and 50 KB, and a scan of your signature, often between 10 and 20 KB. The portals are strict. A file of 21 KB is simply rejected, frequently with an unhelpful error.
A photo straight from a phone is several megabytes, more than a hundred times too big. This page brings it down to the limit while keeping as much clarity as 20 KB allows.
It does not simply crush the image at the lowest setting. It encodes the picture at several quality levels and keeps the highest one that still comes in under 20 KB, so you get the clearest file that fits. Only if even the lowest quality is too large does it reduce the pixel size, a little at a time, and try again. If the image still will not fit after that, the page tells you plainly instead of handing you a file the portal will refuse.
The result row shows the original size, the new size and the saving, so you can see at once that the file is under the limit before you upload it.
At 20 KB a full photograph will visibly soften, but a passport-style head-and-shoulders picture holds up well because most of it is plain background and a face. Crop tightly before compressing: the fewer pixels there are, the more quality each one can have. A plain light background compresses far better than a patterned wall. Take the photo in daylight, without heavy shadows, since noise from a dark room costs a lot of kilobytes.
Many forms also set a pixel size, such as 200 by 230 pixels, or a minimum. Check the instructions: if the form names a width, type it in the maximum width box. A photo at exactly the required size reaches 20 KB at a much higher quality than a large one squeezed down.
Sign in black or dark blue ink on plain white paper, photograph or scan it in good light, and crop it so the signature fills most of the image. A signature is mostly white space with thin lines, which compresses extremely well, so it usually lands well under 20 KB with no visible loss. If the portal asks for a signature of a set size, such as 140 by 60 pixels, enter that width in the box.
Almost every exam and government portal asks for JPG or JPEG. If your image is already a JPG it stays JPG. A PNG would normally be saved as WebP, which is smaller, but most forms do not accept WebP, so for these portals pick JPG in the format list. Compression also removes the hidden EXIF data, such as the camera model and location, which these forms do not need.
The file size is only one of the checks. Portals also look at the file type, the pixel dimensions and sometimes the file name. A file called photo.jpeg may be refused where photo.jpg is expected, or the other way round, so rename it if the form is specific. Some forms reject images under a minimum size as well, for example 10 KB, so a tiny signature can fail for being too small; if that happens, type a larger width or raise the target to 18 or 19.
Another common cause is a photo taken in portrait mode that appears sideways on the portal. The rotation recorded by your phone is applied to the pixels before compressing, so the result here is the right way up. If the preview looks correct, the uploaded file will be too.
Look at the result row. The new size must be below the limit the form gives, and the small preview should show a recognisable face or a legible signature. Open the downloaded file once on your phone or computer at full size: if the eyes and the outline of the face are clear, an examiner will accept it. If it looks blocky, crop more tightly or set the pixel size the form names, then compress again. Keep the original photo; you can always produce a new 20 KB copy from it, but you cannot recover detail from a compressed one.
Very occasionally a large, noisy photo still does not fit even after the width has been reduced several times. The page then says that the target was missed instead of claiming success. Crop the image first so that only the head and shoulders remain, or type a width of around 300 pixels, and compress again. That always brings a passport-style photo under 20 KB.
Your photo and signature are compressed in this browser tab and never uploaded. Close the tab and they are gone.
For passport-style photos and signatures, yes. Check the form's pixel size as well as the KB limit.
It tries several quality settings, keeps the best one that fits, and shrinks the width only if that is not enough.
Yes. Type 15 in the target size box, and the file will be at or under 15 KB.
Twenty kilobytes is very little for a full photo. Crop tightly and set the pixel size the form asks for; both help a lot.
Pick JPG in the output format list.
No. It is compressed in your browser.
Your answer is stored in this browser only. It is not sent to us and no totals are counted.