Compress video

If you want to send a video or embed it on your website, you may need to reduce the size of a large video file. With File-Converter-Online.com, you can compress your video in just three steps:

How can I reduce the size of videos online?

1. Upload your video file using the "Select File" button.
2. Select the target format (usually .MP4 is a good choice)
3. Click "Reduce video size!"
4. The download will start automatically on the next page as soon as the conversion is complete. You will then find the file in your downloads folder.

Which video formats can be reduced in size?

File-Converter-Online.com currently supports the reduction of a wide range of video formats, including the following: .mp4, .WMV, .MOV, .3GPP, .AVI, .VOB, .MPG, .MPEG, .GIF, .MKV, .FLV, .WEBM.

Various technologies are used when compressing a video. The most crucial factors in video compression are the resolution and the so-called codec. These two aspects primarily affect the video component of a film. The size of the audio portion (i.e. the sound of a video) is primarily influenced by the bitrate, the codec and the number of channels. For example, a video may contain audio for stereo (two channels) or surround sound (four or more channels) – or even both.

The individual aspects are explained in detail below:

How does a video’s resolution affect its file size?

Resolution has a quadratic effect on the size of a video. This means that a video with 4K resolution (3840×2160 pixels) takes up roughly four times the file size compared to the same video with Full HD resolution (1920×1080 pixels) – because the number of pixels (the product of the resolution) is also four times as high.

How does the frame rate (frames per second) affect the size of a video?

The frame rate has a linear effect on a video’s file size. In this specific example, a video at 60 fps (frames per second) results in a file size twice as large as a video at 30 fps.

How does the codec / file format affect the video size?

The codec is also a key factor in determining the final file size of a video. The better a codec is at compressing the video, the smaller the file will be. Significant progress has been made in recent years with codecs such as .H264 and .h265, meaning that newer codecs can produce significantly smaller files whilst maintaining the same quality.

Why can mobile phone videos be compressed so effectively?

Videos from smartphones, whether iPhones or Android devices such as the Samsung Galaxy or Google Pixel, can usually be reduced in size considerably. Savings of 50 to 80% are often possible here. The reason lies in the way mobile phones record videos: the built-in hardware encoders are optimised for low battery consumption and particularly fast processing, not for the smallest possible file size. As a result, more data is stored than is actually necessary.
File-Converter-Online.com uses state-of-the-art technologies on high-performance servers in Germany. This allows significantly more processing power to be dedicated to reducing the video’s size, resulting in much smaller files whilst maintaining the same resolution and quality. Hardware encoders optimised for power consumption are also used in footage from drones (such as DJI), dashcams or action cameras (such as GoPro).

File-Converter-Online.com has already set the best possible defaults for resolution, frame rate and codec. If you do not change the settings, the video retains its original quality and only the video and audio codecs are optimised to achieve the best possible result in terms of quality and the smallest possible file size.

Further tools:

We also have a tool for PDF files that are too large: Reduce PDF size.

Last updated on May 20, 2026 by Sören Ramspeck with the experience of more than 128,710,634 converted files since 2013.