How to reduce photo file size on iPhone

How many photos and videos do you take a day on your iPhone? It's estimated that the average user takes around 20-30 a day, but if you're on vacation or at a special social event, the chances are this is much higher.

This seemingly innocent daily habit will quickly cause your iPhone to fill up, impacting output, so when performance starts wavering, freeing up space and looking for ways to optimize how it runs is essential. Knowing how to reduce photo file size on an iPhone can help free up much-needed storage space. Just like using a smart iPhone decluttering app CleanMy®Phone. We'll show you both. Let's dive in!

Reasons to make iPhone pictures smaller file size

Learning how to reduce the photo file size on iPhone 13 or later is a great way to help you manage and optimize your device; let's take a look at a couple of popular reasons users want to know how:

• Free up storage space on your device in general
• Faster sharing of images via messaging apps or email, as smaller files upload more quickly.
• Improve overall performance by reducing the load on storage and processing.
• Save your mobile data when you send or upload photos.
• Improve iCloud backup times.

Now we've covered the basics, let's get to the tips and tricks.

Reduce file size of iPhone photo

There are a few ways to reduce file size of iPhone photos: use a cleaner app to turn Live photos to still, enable HEIC format, reduce video resolution, and reduce photos with the Mail app or WhatsApp. All of these will make your photo library thinner. 

1. Compress Live photos on iPhone

One obvious way to compress or reduce photo size en masse is to use a dedicated tool like CleanMy®Phone — it can compress videos and freeze your Live Photos, quickly locate all doubles and similars, and help you remove them immediately. Here's how it works:

1. Open CleanMy®Phone > Choose Organize.
2. Click on From Live to Still.
3. Select your photos and tap Convert.

Why use CleanMy®Phone: 

• Comes with a 3-day free trial not limited in functionality
• You can select up to 200 photos to turn Live to Still
• Allows to compress videos in batches of up to 10 videos per batch

2. Enable HEIC format

The HEIC format (High-Efficiency Image Container) has been available on our iPhones since 2017; it significantly reduces file size but retains the image quality. Making sure this is enabled will help to seriously save space; here's how to check it is turned on:

1. Open Settings > Camera > Formats.
2. Select High Efficiency.

3. Reduce video resolution

Reducing the resolution quality of your videos will result in smaller video files; if you take a lot of videos, this will significantly help make your videos smaller. Here's how:

1. Open Settings > Camera > Record Video.
2. Select your desired video output.

4. Reduce your photos with Mail

You can really easily adjust your photo size when you send images via Apple's Mail app. Here's how:

1. Open up the Mail app and create a new message.
2. Add all the details, such as subject and recipient.
3. In the message body, press the paperclip icon and tap Photo Library.
4. Select all your desired photos and press the send button.
5. From the pop-up, select the photo size you'd like.

Now, you can download the compressed photos from the items you sent and delete the original larger files.

5. Reduce your photos with WhatsApp

Another way how to reduce iPhone photo size is via WhatsApp — you can choose the image size before sending it. You can then delete the originals and save the compressed file size; here's how:

1. Open WhatsApp and create a new message or select a recipient.
2. Add photos to the message by tapping the + icon.
3. Tap the edit icon.
4. Tap HD at the top of the photo.
5. Select an image size and send.

So, there you go, five ways how to make iPhone photo smaller in file size. Let's end this article with some FAQs.

Frequently asked questions

Will reducing the photo file size lower image quality?

Compression does comprise reducing the quality. But it's worth mentioning that if you switch to taking photos in Apple's HEIC mode, the quality remains, but the file size is smaller. But if you're then looking to compress an image, in general, you'll lose quality. Lots of third-party apps boast compression without quality loss, so it's worth looking into their capabilities if you opt to reduce size with a tool.

How much space can I save by reducing photo file sizes?

The amount of space saved will totally depend on how many photos you have and the level of compression or resizing applied. You can keep an eye on your iPhone storage before and after compression here;

• Open Settings > General > iPhone Storage.

Will reducing photo size affect how they are backed up to iCloud?

Yes, the obvious answer is that smaller photos take up less iCloud storage, which in turn should make your backups faster and more efficient.