How to compress images on Windows comes down to three built-in-ish tools. Paint resizes a single photo by pixels or percentage and saves it as a new JPEG. The Photos app resizes the same way through its three-dot menu, with a Save a copy safety net Paint does not have. For a whole folder at once, the free Microsoft PowerToys Image Resizer adds a right-click Resize with ImageResizer option to File Explorer, with its own JPEG quality slider layered on top of the resize.
This is the Windows chapter of the complete guide to compressing images on any device, and it exists because Windows spreads the job across three separate apps instead of one Compress button the way a phone's share sheet sometimes does. I run the browser compressor this site is named for too, so where Paint, Photos, or PowerToys genuinely is the faster answer I will say so, and where all three quietly cannot do something, like write WebP or AVIF, I will say that too. Every method below comes from Windows itself or a free Microsoft add-on, nothing paid and nothing that phones home with your photos.
What are your built-in options for compressing images on Windows?
Windows gives you three built-in-ish routes to compress images, plus one that changes bytes without touching pixel dimensions at all, and this table is the whole map; every section below walks one row in full.
| Goal | Where | What it actually does |
|---|---|---|
| Shrink one photo fast | Paint, Home tab, Resize | Fewer pixels, smaller file, entered as pixels or percentage |
| Resize with the original kept safe | Photos app, three-dot menu, Resize, then Save a copy | Same pixel lever, original file untouched |
| Resize or re-encode a whole folder at once | File Explorer, right-click, Resize with ImageResizer | Presets or a custom size, plus its own JPEG quality and metadata settings |
| Cut bytes without changing pixel dimensions | PowerToys Image Resizer, custom size set to the original, lower Quality | Same pixels, fewer bytes |
Which row you need depends on whether the file is too big in pixels, in bytes, or both, covered next in the order most people hit them.
How to Compress Images on Windows With Microsoft Paint
Home tab, then Resize, is Paint's one resizing dialog, and it handles a single image start to finish with nothing to install; Paint ships on every Windows installation already. If you came here searching how to compress an image on Windows because Paint is the only editor you already have open, this is the fastest route.
Resize by pixels or percentage
Right-click the file, choose Open with, and pick Paint if it does not open there by default. On the Home tab, click Resize. Choose Pixels or Percentage, percentage is the default, and type a value into either the horizontal or vertical field. Paint fills in the other number itself to keep the photo's proportions (HowToGeek, How To Resize Images And Photos In Windows), so you never have to work out the ratio by hand.
Save as JPEG, never Save
Click OK to apply the resize, then save the result as a new file: File, Save as, JPEG, not plain Save. That distinction matters more here than in some apps, because Paint's Save command overwrites the original at the smaller size, with no separate save a copy safety net the way the Photos app has. Use Save as before you close the file if you want to keep the full size original at all.
How do you resize a photo in the Windows Photos app?
The three-dot ("See more") menu, then Resize, is where the Photos app keeps its one resizing tool, and it comes with an undo button Paint does not: Save a copy.
Three-dot menu, then Resize
Open the image in Photos, click the three-dot menu, and choose Resize. Set a width or height in pixels, with the aspect ratio lock on (Microsoft Learn Q&A, custom image sizing in Photos). Recent versions of the Photos app dropped the older one-click Small, Medium, and Large resize presets that used to sit in that same menu for some users; if you find only a blank width and height field, that is not a bug, it is the current app.
Save a copy keeps the original
Choose Save a copy instead of Save once you are happy with the new size. The app's editing tools save non-destructively, and Save a copy writes a new, smaller file next to the original, leaving the original untouched (Microsoft Support, Edit photos and videos in Windows). Picking plain Save from the same menu overwrites the file you started with, at the new smaller size, permanently, so the choice is worth double-checking before you click.
How do you batch resize images on Windows with PowerToys Image Resizer?
Install Microsoft's free PowerToys, then right-click a selection of images in File Explorer and choose Resize with ImageResizer, the one tool on this page actually built for more than one file at a time (Microsoft Learn, Image Resizer utility for Windows). This is also the fastest way to batch resize images on Windows without opening each photo one at a time. PowerToys installs free from the Microsoft Store, and Image Resizer is one of several utilities bundled inside it, most unrelated to photos at all.
Presets, custom sizes, and Fit vs Fill vs Stretch
Select every photo you want to shrink in File Explorer, right-click any of them, and pick Resize with ImageResizer. Choose a preset or a custom size, in pixels, percent, inches, or centimeters, and pick a mode:
| Mode | What happens | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| Fit | Scales proportionally into the target box, nothing cropped | You want the whole image, just smaller |
| Fill | Scales proportionally, then crops whatever does not fit | You need an exact box size, like a thumbnail |
| Stretch | Forces the image into the target size, no cropping | Rarely; it distorts the photo unless the target ratio matches the original |
JPEG quality, shrink only, and removing metadata
Lower the JPEG Quality slider, anywhere from 1 to 100, and Image Resizer trades visual fidelity for bytes, the same lever this site's own compressor uses at its default of 80. Turn on Shrink only so the tool skips, rather than enlarges, any file already smaller than your target, and turn on Remove metadata to strip EXIF, the hidden data block carrying GPS coordinates, camera model, and a timestamp, from the copies it writes. Leave either the width or height field blank and Image Resizer works out the other one proportionally, the same trick Paint uses. Resized copies are written next to the originals with a filename suffix, unless you deliberately choose Replace, so nothing is destroyed by default.
How do you cut file size on Windows without resizing the image at all?
Type the photo's own width and height into Image Resizer's custom size fields and touch only the Quality slider; the pixel count comes out unchanged, and the file still gets smaller because JPEG quality is a separate setting from size. That is the closest thing Windows has to a plain compress, do not resize button, and it lives inside a tool most people only ever think of as a resizer.
It only works for JPEG. PNG does not carry a quality dial, because a lossless format does not have bytes to trade for a look; PNG stores every pixel exactly, every time. If your original is a PNG and you want a smaller file without touching its dimensions, converting it to JPEG first is the only lever available on Windows, and that trades away PNG's lossless transparency for JPEG's lossy compression. Worth doing for a photo. Not worth doing for a screenshot with text or transparency you need to keep.
Why do Paint, Photos, and PowerToys stop short of WebP or AVIF?
None of Paint, the Photos app, or PowerToys Image Resizer writes WebP or AVIF, and that gap costs more bytes than most people expect from a menu they never open. Image Resizer's fallback encoder covers PNG, JPEG, TIFF, BMP, GIF, and WMPhoto only, a safety net for a format that cannot save back to itself, not a file type conversion tool by design.
Using this site's own measured compression ratios (WebP typically 25 to 35 percent smaller than a JPEG of equivalent quality, AVIF often around 50 percent smaller) against a typical 4.5 MB phone photo compressed at the default quality of 80, the difference across formats looks like this:
| Format | Approx. size | How it is derived |
|---|---|---|
| Original | 4.5 MB | The photo straight off the camera, uncompressed further |
| JPEG, quality 80 | ~900 KB | Measured default output for a typical phone photo |
| WebP, quality 80 | ~630 KB | JPEG figure reduced 30%, the middle of the site's 25 to 35% rule |
| AVIF, quality 80 | ~450 KB | JPEG figure reduced 50%, per the site's AVIF rule of thumb |
That gap is the real reason a resized photo can still feel too big on Windows. Pixels come down, but the format stays JPEG or PNG the whole time, so the savings WebP or AVIF would add never show up unless something else does the converting.
The reason comes down to what each tool was built to do. Paint and the Photos app exist to view and lightly edit photos, and Image Resizer exists to resize them consistently across a batch; none of the three was built as a format converter, so their save dialogs only offer the formats Windows already handles well: JPEG, PNG, BMP, TIFF, GIF, and the older WMPhoto. WebP and AVIF are newer, browser-first formats, and adding support means shipping a new decoder, not just a new item in a menu, a bigger job than any of these built-in tools ever tried to solve.
Common mistakes that undo the resize
- Choosing plain Save in Paint or Photos instead of Save as or Save a copy throws away the original at full size, permanently, the moment you click it.
- Picking Fill in Image Resizer when you did not want cropping cuts off part of the photo to force it into an exact box; Fit is the mode that keeps the whole image.
- Hunting for the old Photos Small, Medium, and Large presets wastes time on a menu that no longer exists for many users; Microsoft's own guidance for resizing several pictures at once now points to PowerToys instead (Microsoft Learn Q&A, resize multiple pictures in Win 11).
- Typing mismatched width and height values with the aspect ratio lock off stretches the photo, often without anyone noticing until it has already been sent somewhere.
- Assuming a JPEG is already as small as it can get. Most phone and camera JPEGs save well above the quality any screen shows, so there is usually room left, just not inside Paint's percentage-only dialog.
Where these built-in tools stop, and when to switch
Paint, Photos, and PowerToys answer how to compress images on Windows for a single photo or a modest batch already, and that is genuinely enough for most people most of the time. They run out in the same few places every time. None of the three writes WebP or AVIF, so if a form or a CMS specifically wants one of those newer formats, nothing in this stack gets you there directly. There is no target-size mode anywhere either, no way to say "get this under 200 KB" and have the app find the right quality for you; you drag a slider, check the result in File Explorer, and repeat if it is still too big. And splitting the job across three separate apps, one for a quick single photo, another for a safer single photo, a third for batches, means switching windows depending on which job you are doing that day.
That is the gap a browser compressor fills. The one I run takes JPG, PNG, WebP, and AVIF, up to 25 MB per image and 30 in a batch, no signup, and strips EXIF by default on every file it touches. The homepage demo is a real result, not a guess: a 497 KB JPEG becomes a 214 KB WebP at the default quality of 80, 56.9 percent smaller, with no visible difference at normal zoom. If you would rather drag one slider until a number on screen says small enough, or the destination wants a format none of Paint, Photos, or PowerToys can write, drop the photo on the compressor and let it find the right size for you.