How to Compress Video on iPhone
· Updated · 5 min read · By Furkan Kaya
Quick answer
The built-in way to compress a video on iPhone is a Shortcuts shortcut: add Encode Media, set Size to 1280×720 (or 1920×1080), add Save to Photo Album, then share the video and run it. For a few taps per video, a converter app such as ConvertEase compresses on the iPhone too — free to download, Premium to save.
iPhone videos look incredible — and they're enormous. A minute of 4K can be hundreds of megabytes, far too big to text or email. Instead of letting an app silently crush your clip into a blurry mess, compress it yourself so you control the quality. Here's how, right on your phone.
Why iPhone videos are so big
By default the iPhone records at high resolution and frame rate (often 4K at 30 or 60 fps). That's great for watching, but it produces huge files. Messaging services and email caps (often ~25 MB) can't handle them, so they either block the send or aggressively downgrade the video for you. Compressing first means you decide the trade-off.
Built-in method: compress a video with Shortcuts
- Open Shortcuts, tap + and add the action Encode Media.
- Tap Show More and set Size to 1280×720 (or 1920×1080 for more detail).
- Add Save to Photo Album, then turn on Show in Share Sheet in the shortcut's settings (ⓘ).
- Share a video from Photos and run the shortcut — a smaller copy is saved next to the original.
It's free and runs on your iPhone. Once set up it's reusable, but you only get preset sizes. To shoot smaller files from now on, lower Settings → Camera → Record Video to 1080p.
Using the ConvertEase app
If you'd rather not build a shortcut, the ConvertEase app compresses video on the iPhone — the clip is not uploaded:
- Download ConvertEase from the App Store and open it.
- Tap Compress and choose the video you want to shrink.
- Pick a compression option for where you're sending it.
- Tap Compress. Saving the result requires a Premium subscription; the app itself is free to download.
You can also change the format — see MOV to MP4, or the iPhone video compressor page. For photos, the free image compressor works right in Safari, and if you only need the sound, the MP4 to MP3 converter turns a video into a much smaller audio file.
What resolution should I compress to?
| Where it's going | Suggested resolution | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Text message / WhatsApp | 720p | Small file, looks fine on phones |
| Email attachment | 720p–1080p | Fits under size limits |
| Social media upload | 1080p | Sharp, platform re-encodes anyway |
| Keep as a high-quality archive | 1080p, lower bitrate | Big size cut, still crisp |
Tip: lower resolution beats over-compressing
If a clip is still too big, stepping the resolution down one notch usually looks better than forcing a tiny target size at the original resolution, which can introduce blocky artifacts. On a phone screen, 720p is hard to distinguish from 1080p.
Shrink videos on your iPhone
Free to download · video compressed on the device · Premium to save
Download on the App StoreFrequently asked questions
Without installing anything, build a Shortcuts shortcut with Encode Media set to a smaller Size (such as 1280×720) plus Save to Photo Album, and run it from the video's share sheet. A converter app such as ConvertEase also compresses video on the iPhone; it is free to download, and saving results requires a Premium subscription.
iPhones record in high resolution (often 4K), and even a short clip can be hundreds of megabytes. Messaging apps and email impose size limits, so a large video gets blocked or heavily downgraded. Compressing it first keeps you in control of the quality.
Dropping 4K to 1080p, or 1080p to 720p, usually makes the file much smaller with little visible difference on a phone screen. Stepping the resolution down tends to look better than forcing a very low bitrate at the original resolution.
Not with these methods. The Shortcuts method and ConvertEase's video compression both run on the iPhone, so the video is not uploaded. (In ConvertEase, only document conversion and PDF/Office compression run on its server.)