The Best Free Video Compressors in 2026

A phone records about 70 to 105 MB of video per minute at its default 1080p setting, by Apple’s own figures. That is fine for the phone and useless for most places you want to send it: Discord’s free limit is 20 MB, Gmail’s is 25 MB. Getting under those limits is a question of three settings, resolution, quality and codec, and the tools below differ mainly in how directly they let you set them.

Two other differences matter more than they first appear. Desktop tools compress on your own computer, while web tools upload the video first, which for a 2 GB file is the slowest part of the job. And several free web tools put a watermark on the result.

How we compared them

We checked each tool against its own documentation, pricing and release pages in October 2026, and say so where a vendor does not publish something. Our own browser-based compressor is listed last, with its main weakness, speed, measured rather than guessed.

The short answer

1. HandBrake: best overall

HandBrake is free, open source and actively maintained, with version 1.11.2 released in June 2026. It runs on Windows, Mac and Linux and does everything on your own computer. It encodes H.264, H.265, AV1 and VP9, and can use the hardware encoders in Intel, AMD, NVIDIA and Apple chips to go much faster.

The setting that matters is RF, HandBrake’s constant-quality value. Lower means better quality and a bigger file. Its documentation recommends RF 20 to 24 for 1080p with the x264 and x265 encoders, and advises constant quality over other modes unless you have a specific reason. Start with a preset, drop the resolution to 720p if the video is for a chat app, and adjust RF until the size is right.

2. Shutter Encoder: best for hitting an exact size

Shutter Encoder is a free FFmpeg-based app for Windows, Mac and Linux, with no ads or limits and funded by donations. Its standout feature for this job is a target file size in megabytes, which turns “get this under Discord’s limit” into typing a number. It warns that it cannot guarantee the exact size, so aim a little under. It also offers constant-quality (CRF) encoding, resolution scaling, frame-rate conversion, and codecs from H.264 to AV1 and H.266.

3. FFmpeg: the engine underneath

FFmpeg is the command-line tool many of the others are built on. For a good general-purpose compression of a phone video:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libx264 -crf 23 -preset slow -c:a aac -b:a 128k output.mp4

CRF 23 is x264’s default. FFmpeg’s guidance is that each step of 6 roughly halves or doubles the size, so CRF 28 gives about half the file. Swapping in libx265 at its default CRF 28 gives quality similar to x264 at 23 in about half the size, at the cost of compatibility with older devices. Add -vf scale=-2:720 to bring it down to 720p.

4. Your phone: often enough on its own

Apple’s own advice for compressing on an iPhone is the free iMovie app: share the video, open Options and choose a lower resolution. Apple puts 1080p at 70 to 105 MB per minute and 720p at 19 to 27 MB, so that one change cuts the file by roughly three quarters. For future recordings, recording below 1080p and using the High Efficiency format keeps files smaller from the start.

On Samsung Galaxy phones, the Gallery app can do the same: Edit, then the menu, then Size and format, and pick a lower resolution. Nothing is uploaded in either case.

5. Clipchamp: an editor that exports small

Microsoft’s Clipchamp is a video editor rather than a compressor, but its free plan exports at 480p, 720p or 1080p with no watermark, which makes it a reasonable way to shrink a video you are trimming anyway. It needs a personal Microsoft account, and projects that use premium stock or features cannot be exported on the free plan. There is no control beyond resolution.

6. FreeConvert: the most control on the web

FreeConvert’s video compressor offers what most web tools hide: a choice of H.264 or H.265, and three ways to compress, by target percentage, by quality (CRF) or by maximum bitrate, plus resizing. The free plan accepts files up to 1 GB, with 20 conversion minutes a day and 5 per file. Videos are uploaded and deleted after 8 hours.

7. Adobe Express: simple, with a size estimate

Adobe Express has a free compressor for videos up to 1 GB, with a single slider and an estimate of the resulting size, which takes the guesswork out of hitting a limit. It is an upload tool, and Adobe does not state on the page whether an account or watermark applies.

8. CapCut: needs an account

CapCut’s online compressor lets you set resolution, quality, frame rate and bitrate, and advertises watermark-free output. It requires a free account. CapCut’s own help says using Pro-only templates or features can add a watermark, so stick to the basic tools if you are on the free plan.

9. VLC: it works, if you already have it

VLC, free on almost every platform, can re-encode through Media, then Convert/Save, with a choice of codec, container and bitrate. It offers no constant-quality slider and no target size, and its conversion profiles are fiddly to edit. Use it if it is already installed and you need one quick conversion; otherwise HandBrake is the better tool.

10. Shotcut: a free editor that exports well

Shotcut is a free, open-source video editor for Windows, Mac and Linux, with version 26.9.27 released in September 2026. If you are trimming or editing the video anyway, compress it on export: it encodes H.264, H.265 and AV1, supports hardware encoding, and has a batch export queue. Its quality percentage does not map the same way on every encoder, so check the result.

11. Avidemux: quick cuts without re-encoding

Avidemux is a free, simple editor whose copy mode trims a video without re-encoding it, so cutting the unwanted start and end loses no quality at all, which is sometimes all the compression you need. It can also re-encode with x264 or x265 and has a two-pass target size mode, which its maintainer notes ignores audio, so files come out over target. The last stable release was in 2022.

12. 8mb.video: a size limit in one click

8mb.video does one thing: you pick a target size, with presets at 8, 10, 20, 25, 50 and 100 MB or a custom size up to 200 MB, and it compresses to fit. Trimming and removing audio are options. The video is uploaded and deleted after 20 minutes or once downloaded. It suits a one-off clip for a chat app; there is no control over codec or resolution.

13. VEED: watermarked on the free plan

VEED compresses files up to 1 GB free, with quality and resolution controls and advanced settings for CRF, bitrate and frame rate. Its help centre says free exports carry a VEED watermark and the free editor exports at 720p. That makes it a reasonable tool if you pay for it and a poor free one.

14. Clideo: watermarked on the free plan

Clideo needs no account and accepts uploads up to 500 MB, with presets and an estimate of the output size. Free results carry a small watermark, and the highest-quality preset is a premium feature. Clideo does not state how long uploaded files are kept.

15. ConvertStuff: no upload, but slow

Our video compressor runs FFmpeg, compiled to WebAssembly, inside your browser tab. The video is never uploaded, and there is no account, watermark or size cap on our side. It has a CRF quality slider from 18 to 40 (default 28), an optional cap at 1080p, 720p or 480p, and writes H.264 with AAC audio in an MP4. If the result would be larger than your original, it gives you the original back.

The catch is speed. It runs on a single CPU core, and in our test on a fast desktop, 1080p took about four and a half times the length of the clip to encode, so a one-minute video takes four to five minutes. HandBrake with a hardware encoder is many times faster. It also has no target-size option and no H.265, and very large files can run out of browser memory.

Hitting a size limit: the arithmetic

If a tool lets you set a bitrate rather than a size, you can work it out. File size is bitrate multiplied by duration. To fit a 60-second clip into 18 MB: 18 MB is about 144 megabits, divided by 60 seconds is 2.4 megabits per second in total. Leave 128 kilobits for audio and set the video to about 2.2 Mbps. For a 3-minute clip, the same budget gives about 0.7 Mbps of video, which is too little for 1080p to look good. Drop to 720p or 480p, or trim the clip.

• Discord (free): 20 MB, per Discord’s help centre as of August 2026.
• Gmail: 25 MB; larger files become a Drive link.
• WhatsApp: compresses videos itself when sent normally. Sending the file as a document avoids that, with documents allowed up to 2 GB.

If you only need the sound, extracting it is far smaller than any video: our MP4 to MP3 converter does that in your browser without uploading the video.