How to Compress a Video and Reduce the File Size | MakeUseOf

Has your video turned out to be too large? That’s the case with most videos you record these days. Fortunately, you can compress your videos and reduce their file size using a variety of methods.

Here we show how to compress a video on Windows, Mac, iPhone, and Android.

How to Compress a Video on Windows

You have multiple ways to compress a video on a Windows PC. Here are three of those ways.

Related: How Does File Compression Work?

1. Compress a Video by Zipping It

ZIP archives help you compress and combine your files. You can create a file archive (such as a ZIP or 7Zip archive) for your video, which in turn compresses the video.

Here’s how you do that:

1. To compress multiple videos, put them all in a single folder on your PC.
2. Open that folder, select all the videos you want to compress, right-click on any one video, and select Send to > Compressed (zipped) folder.
3. Windows will create a new archive and save it in the same folder as your videos.

The size of this archive containing your videos will be significantly smaller than the size of your original videos.

Want to do it with a single video? Start at step 2 in the above list, using the single video you want to compress.

2. Compress Your Video Size Smaller Using the Built-In Video Editor

Windows 10 has an integrated video editor and you can use it to make your videos smaller in size. There are multiple options to compress videos in this app. Here’s how you use it:

1. Search for Video editor using the Start Menu and select the Best Match.
2. Click the + (plus) sign on the New video project card to create a new project.
3. Click Add and add the video you want to compress.
4. Right-click on your video and select Place in the storyboard.

   

5. Click Finish video in the top-right corner.
6. Choose an option from the Video Quality dropdown menu to compress your video. The lower the resolution you choose, the smaller your resulting video will be. Then, hit Export.

   

Please note that selecting a small resolution size can decrease the quality of your video. You may have to play around with video compression settings to find the sweet point of quality and file size.

3. Reduce the Video File Size Using VLC Media Player

VLC is not just a media player app. It’s more than that. You can use this app to encode your videos using various codecs, and this should help you shrink the size of your videos.

Here’s how you use VLC as a compression tool:

1. Open VLC, click the Media menu at the top, and select Convert/Save.
2. Click the Add button, add your video file, and hit Convert/Save at the bottom.
3. The Profile dropdown menu is what lets you compress your video file. Click this menu, choose the profile that best suits the device where you will be playing this video, select a destination, and click Start at the bottom.

   

4. If you want to change the video resolution, or you want to specify any other settings, you can do so by clicking the spanner icon next to the Profile dropdown menu.

How to Shrink a Video on a Mac

There are both internal as well as external methods to reduce the file size of a video on your Mac. If you want a simpler option, the built-in method is great. For more flexibility and customizations, go for the external method.

You can use both of those methods as follows.

1. Make a Video Smaller Using QuickTime Player

QuickTime Player is a media player app but you can use it to save your videos in a lower resolution. This allows you to create a copy of your video that’s much smaller than the original video file. As with other forms of compression, you may experience some quality loss in the output video file.

Here’s how you do that:

1. Open your video in QuickTime Player.
2. Click File at the top, select Export As, and choose a resolution for your video.

   

3. Select a folder to save your video and hit Save.

2. Use HandBrake to Compress a Video

QuickTime Player doesn’t have many options to customize your file compression tasks. If you’re looking for more options, a tool like HandBrake can help you out.

HandBrake is a free and open-source app that allows you to convert and encode your videos using various codecs. It has loads of customizable options and this lets you produce a compressed file exactly the way you want.

You can use HandBrake as follows to compress your videos:

1. Launch HandBrake, click Open Source, and load the video file that you want to compress.
2. Click the Preset menu and choose one of the many presets to compress your file. Most options are self-explanatory so you shouldn’t have any issues.

   

3. Customize any other options you want.
4. When you’re ready, click Start to begin compressing your video.

HandBrake is a great tool for macOS, but it is also available to Windows users, too.

How to Reduce the Video File Size on an iPhone

You don’t need to transfer your iPhone’s videos to a computer to compress them. There are apps on the official iOS App Store that let you shrink your videos right on your iOS device.

Video Compress (free but ad-supported) is one of those apps that lets you reduce the size of your videos. Simply load your video in the app, choose appropriate options, and get a reduced version of your video.

Here’s how you do that:

1. Launch the app and tap the red icon in the middle of the screen. Then, allow the app to access your phone’s content.
2. Tap one of the videos in your gallery that you want to convert. Then, tap the checkmark at the top.
3. On the following screen, drag the slider to specify the compression ratio for your video. Dragging the slider to the left will reduce the video file size, but this will impact the quality of the video. Keep a balance and then tap the icon at the top-right corner.
4. Let your video compress, and then tap Save to save it to the Photos app.
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How to Compress a Video on Android Devices

Android devices also have several apps to compress videos. One of these apps is Video Compress which is free but comes with in-app purchases.

Use this app as follows to compress videos directly on your Android device:

1. Open the app and allow it to access your files.
2. Tap the video you want to reduce the size for and select Compress Video.
3. The following screen displays various compression options. Tap the one that you are okay with and the app will begin the compression process.
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4. Use the Custom tab at the top if you want to configure settings for the process.

Lower the Size and Not the Quality of Your Videos

You don’t always have to compromise with the quality of your videos to reduce their size. There are tools that significantly reduce your videos’ size without having much of an impact on quality. This is what the methods above help you achieve on your devices.

Like videos, you can compress your audio files as well. This helps shrink the size of your music files without actually reducing their quality. You can do this audio compression on various platforms out there.

About The Author

Mahesh Makvana
(50 Articles Published)

Mahesh is a tech writer at MakeUseOf. He’s been writing tech how-to guides for about 8 years now and has covered many topics. He loves to teach people how they can get the most out of their devices.

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