How to Compress Photos on iPhone? 4 Ways to Reduce Photo Size

What to do if your iPhone runs out of memory? What if there are countless photos on your mobile phone but you don't want to delete them? Is there anyway to increase iPhone's memory capacity without expandable memory? Of course, YES. You can compress photos on iPhone to reduce photo size and free up much more storage space on your device. This article will show you 4 different ways to compress photos on iPhone to reclaim your photo space as easy as ABC.

Method 1. Compress iPhone Photos by Taking Screenshots of Photos

Method 2. Reduce iPhone Photo Size via Email

Method 3. Compress Photos Library on iPhone via "Optimize iPhone Storage"

Method 4. Take HEIF/HEIC Photos Instead to Reduce Photo Size in iOS 11





Why Do You Need to Compress Photos on iPhone/iPad?

1. Free up storage space on device without deleting pictures.

One of the reasons to make iPhone become popular is that iPhone can shoot beautiful and colorful photos at 12MPx and videos at 4K resolutions with its high-quality camera. However, this means that the size of each photo will be between 3MB and 5MB depending on colors. Most of times there are up to 10GB - 20GB photos on your device, which is a large number if there are three thousands of photos on your iPhone or iPad. So compressing photos on iPhone is a good way to free up storage space on your device.

2. Save iCloud's limited space.

Sometimes, you might want to sync photos and other data to iCloud for backup. However, iCloud only offers 5GB free space for users and it is not sufficient for so many iOS data. If you need more space on iCloud, you need to pay for it, and you can get more 20GB at Rs. 60 ($0.99) per month. So why not compress your photos before storing them to iCloud ? This can save lots of memory space on your iCloud storage space.

3. Speed up your device.

You can image that how quick your iPhone or iPad runs when you just bought your new device since there are not much personal data on your device. Even though your iPhone or iPad might not run as fast as a new one, your device will absolutely run faster after you compress your iPhone photos and save more iPhone memory.

Method 1. Compress iPhone Photos by Taking Screenshots of Photos

Well, it seems crude, but it works. If you only need one or several compressed photos on iPhone, taking screenshots of these photos would be an easy and effective method. And it is also a good way to reduce the size of a certain photo before sharing it to your friends, saving the limited cellular data if needed.

Steps to take a screenshot of photo on iPhone:

1. Open Photos app on your iPhone.

2. Search and open the photo that you want to compress.

3. For iPhone 6s Plus/6s/6 Plus/6/5s or earlier generations, please press and hold the "Home + Sleep/Wake" buttons at the same time; For iPhone X/8 Plus/8/7 Plus/7 or later generations, please press and hold the "Power + Volume Up" buttons simultaneously at the same time instead.

4. Then the screen will pop up the taken screenshot to remind you that the screenshot has been taken successfully.

Later, you can edit the screenshot directly on Photos app, and delete the original photos from iPhone. And the screenshot will occupy much less space than the original photos.

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Method 2. Reduce iPhone Photo Size via Email

When you are going to share photos via Mail on Photos app, iPhone or iPad will prompt you that you can choose a size for the selected photos or to keep the actual size. Which is an optional way to compress iPhone photos by scaling images.

To do this, you can follow the instructions as below:

1. Launch Photos app on your iPhone or iPad.

2. Open a certain album that contains the photos you want to compress, and select one or multiple photos you want.

3. Tap the Share icon and select "Mail" to share the chosen images.

4. Enter your email address and choose a desired photo size from the pop-up window, including Small, Medium, Large and Actual Size.

5. Tap "Send" button to send the compressed photos to your email. Later, you download the compressed photos to your Photos app and delete the original photos from your device.

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Method 3. Compress Photos Library on iPhone via "Optimize iPhone Storage"

One of the most simplest ways to compress iPhone photos is to compress the whole photo library on iPhone using "Optimize iPhone Storage" feature, which is to move or sync all the existing photos from your iOS device online to iCloud storage. But these pictures are still visible in Photos app as thumbnail. When you tap on a photo to open it, it will be downloaded from iCloud and show you the large image, though it may also have a local copy in some cases.

In short, it can manage the photos that are stored locally and also on the iCloud. And as long as you have a fast and stable connection (either Wi-Fi or cellular data), there won't be any problems. However, if you have poor Internet connection or limited data plans, this method might be not convenient for you.

Anyway, you can compress photo library with the following instructions:

1. Unlock your iPhone or iPad and open Settings app from the Home screen.

2. Tap "Photos & Camera" option under Settings page, and select "Optimize iPhone Storage" option.

3. Then the local photos will sync to iCloud storage and leave the compressed photos on your device.

If the free 5GB storage space is not enough for you, you can pay for more storage space in iCloud for storing photos.

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Method 4. Take HEIF/HEIC Photos Instead to Reduce Photo Size in iOS 11

HEIF, also called High Efficiency Image Format, is a new image format (.heic) in iOS 11 which can reduce photo size without compressing image quality. So for iOS 11 devices, Apple offers a way to solve the problem that photos takes a large amount of storage space on iOS devices. Instead of compressing the existing photos on iPhone, iPhone directly shoots new compressed photos and saves them on Photos app without further operation.

Note: This method is only suitable for iDevices that are running iOS 11, including iPhone X, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone 8, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, iPad Pro (10.5 inch) and iPad Pro 12.9 inch (2nd generation) or later. There is all you need to know about HEIF in iOS 11.

Steps to set up iPhone to take HEIC/HEIF photos to compress iPhone photos:

1. On your iPhone or iPad with iOS 11, please launch Settings app from the Home screen,

2. Tap "Camera" > "Formats" options to view the optional formats of camera capture, "High Efficiency" and "Most Compatible".

3. Select "High Efficiency" option. Note: To reduce file size, capture photos and videos in the high efficiency HEIF/HEVC format. Most Compatible will always use JPEG/H 264.

Related Articles:

How to Transfer Photos from Camera to iPhone/iPad/iPod

How to Recover Deleted Photos from iPhone X/8/8 Plus?

Free Ways to Open and View HEIF/HEIC Images on Windows/Mac/Android

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