Photo · 20 KB ceiling
Resize a photo to under 20 KB
Twenty kilobytes is the tightest photo limit you will meet on an Indian application portal, and it is the one that catches people out. A phone camera photo is typically 3 to 8 MB, so it has to come down by roughly 99 per cent before a portal will look at it.
This page does that conversion in your browser. The file is opened locally, redrawn at a smaller size, and handed back to you as a download. It is never sent to a server, because there is no server involved.
Your file is processed inside this browser and is never uploaded. There is no server involved, so nothing is stored or transmitted.
| Portal or exam | Typical photo requirement |
|---|---|
| SSC (CGL, CHSL, MTS, GD) | 20–50 KB, JPEG, recent photo |
| RRB / Railway recruitment | 15–40 KB |
| IBPS, SBI and other banks | 20–50 KB |
| State PSC (MPPSC, UPPSC, BPSC and others) | 20–50 KB |
| Police and defence recruitment | 20–50 KB |
| Various scholarship portals | 20–100 KB |
Limits change between notifications and are sometimes stated differently by different portals. Always read the current instruction PDF for the exam you are applying to.
Why 20 KB is the difficult one
At 20 KB there is almost no headroom. Something has to give, and the honest answer is pixels. A photo at 20 KB works well as a head-and-shoulders portrait — the sort of image a form actually asks for — but it will look soft if you try to keep a full-length photo at that size.
In practice, a clear passport-style photo lands somewhere around 200 to 400 pixels on the long edge at moderate JPEG quality. That is plenty for an identity photo, because the person reviewing it is checking that the face matches, not printing it.
How this tool finds the size
Lowering the quality setting alone usually overshoots or undershoots. So the tool does two things: it searches for the highest JPEG quality that still fits underneath your limit, and if quality alone is not enough, it steps the pixel dimensions down and repeats.
The result is the sharpest image that satisfies the ceiling, rather than a blind guess. The gauge above shows exactly where the finished file sits against the limit.
If the portal still says the file is too large
Some portals measure a kilobyte as 1000 bytes while others use 1024. If your file is sitting within a few bytes of the limit, that difference alone can trigger a rejection.
If that happens, leave a margin. A photo of about 18 KB passes a 20 KB check under either definition. If the tool gives you something right on the line, run the downloaded file through once more and it will land lower.
Getting a photo that passes first time
Most rejections are about the photograph itself, not the file size. The usual causes:
- A busy background. Stand against a plain, light-coloured wall. Doors, windows and furniture behind you read as clutter.
- Harsh flash. It flattens the face and creates glare. Use daylight from a window, facing it.
- The face is too small in the frame. The head should fill roughly 70 to 80 per cent of the image.
- An old photograph. Notifications usually ask for one taken within the last few months.
- A cap, dark glasses, or a strong shadow across the face.
- A photo of a printed photo. Re-photographing a print adds blur and a colour cast.
Why the file is not uploaded
An identity photo is personal data, and there is no reason for it to travel across the internet just to be resized. Everything on this page happens inside your own browser using the canvas feature that every modern browser already has.
You can confirm this yourself: load the page, then disconnect from the internet and use the tool. It will still work.
Questions people ask
Will a 20 KB photo be clear enough to be accepted?
For an identity photo, yes. At that size the image is around a few hundred pixels across, which is more than enough for a reviewer to confirm the face. It will not be suitable for printing, but forms do not require that.
Why does the tool give 18 KB when the limit is 20 KB?
Deliberately leaving headroom. Portals disagree about whether a kilobyte is 1000 or 1024 bytes, and some apply their own rounding. Sitting slightly under the limit avoids a rejection over a technicality.
Can I use a screenshot of my photo?
It works but it is worse. A screenshot re-encodes the image an extra time and usually adds background pixels from whatever was on screen. Use the original photo file instead.
Does this work on a phone?
Yes. The page is built for a phone first, since most form filling happens on one. If your phone saves photos in HEIC format, most modern browsers convert it automatically when the file is opened.
Do I need to install an app or extension?
No. That is the point of doing this as a web page. Nothing is installed, so there is no app to update and no permissions to grant.
The portal rejected my photo but did not say why.
Work through the checklist above in order. Background and lighting cause more rejections than file size does. If the portal names dimensions rather than size, check the notification for an exact pixel requirement and use the exact-dimensions tool instead.
Is my photo uploaded to your server?
No. There is no server for this tool to upload to. The image is processed in your browser and the download is generated locally.
What if 20 KB makes the photo unusable?
That usually means the source image is too low-resolution to begin with, or too complex. Start from the highest-resolution original you have, use a plain background, and avoid resizing a file that has already been resized.