About FreeCompress.video

What this is

freecompress.video makes video files smaller. You pick the result as a share of the original (70%, 50%, 30% or 10%) or type an exact size in MB, and the page works out the bitrate and, when needed, a lower resolution. The site is available in 13 languages. Trimming, removing sound and extracting audio are on our sister site works.tools.

The compression happens on your device. The browser reads the video from your disk, re-encodes it with the device's own video encoder and saves the result back to your disk. Nothing is uploaded, so there is no queue, no account and no file size limit.

What it does well

Before you start, the panel shows the expected file size and the resolution it will use. If a target can only be met at a lower resolution, that resolution is marked before anything is encoded. After compressing, a slider compares the original and the result frame by frame, and you can play the result before downloading.

Files of several gigabytes and several hours work, because the output is written to disk as it is produced. If the page is closed before the download, the last result stays in the browser for up to seven days.

Why it is free

Upload-based compressors charge for large files because bandwidth and servers cost money. Here the work runs on your device, so that cost does not exist and compressing a video stays free at any size. You can check the no-upload claim yourself: open the browser's developer tools, switch to the Network tab and compress a video. No request carries the file.

The site is paid for by the ads on the page. There are no affiliate links. The privacy policy lists what is measured, and messages sent through the contact page are read.

Known issues

HEVC (H.265) video can only be read on devices with a hardware HEVC decoder. Chrome has no software HEVC decoder, so on other computers the page reports that the video cannot be decoded.

On some Macs, Chrome stops decoding certain H.264 files partway through. The page restarts with software decoding; frames that still cannot be decoded are replaced with the previous frame, and the result shows how many.

AVI, WMV, FLV and other legacy formats are not supported.

Only the first audio track is kept. Audio with more than two channels is mixed down to stereo when it is re-encoded.

The changelog lists every change and the date it went live.