Compress a video to email it
Gmail and most providers advertise a 25 MB limit, then reject your 22 MB video anyway. The catch: attachments are base64-encoded for transport, which inflates them by roughly 33%. The real ceiling for the file itself is about 18 MB on Gmail, and less on many corporate servers.
SqueezeVid targets that real ceiling. The 18 MB Email preset produces a file that survives encoding overhead and actually arrives, instead of bouncing or silently converting into a Drive link.
Drop a video here
or browse files
MP4 · MOV · WebM · MKV. Any length, any size. Nothing is uploaded.
Why “25 MB” rejects a 20 MB file
Email is a text protocol: binary attachments are re-written in base64, which uses 4 characters for every 3 bytes. Your 20 MB video becomes ~27 MB of encoded text, blowing through the 25 MB message limit. That’s also why the safe attachment size is limit ÷ 1.37, plus headroom for the message itself.
Corporate mail servers are often stricter: 10 MB message limits are still common on Exchange. If the video is going to someone’s work address and must get through, the 10 MB preset is the cautious choice.
Attachment vs. link
Over the limit, Gmail quietly swaps your attachment for a Google Drive link, which needs permissions, can expire, and looks like effort for the recipient. A file that fits as a plain attachment just works, forever, in every client, with no access requests. That’s usually worth a modest quality trade.
Frequently asked
- What is the maximum video size I can email?
- Gmail and Outlook.com cap the whole message around 25 MB and 20 MB respectively, measured after base64 encoding inflates attachments by ~33%. In practice a video attachment should stay under ~18 MB for Gmail, and under ~14 MB for Outlook.com.
- Why not just send a Google Drive or WeTransfer link?
- Links work, but they add friction: permissions, expiry dates, a download step, and sometimes a blocked domain on corporate networks. An attachment that fits the limit opens inline in every mail client with zero setup.
- Is the video uploaded anywhere while compressing?
- No. SqueezeVid runs entirely in your browser: the file is read locally, re-encoded locally by your own hardware, and saved back to your downloads. No server ever sees it.