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Compress a video for email

Choose your email size limit, check readability, then create the MP4.

InputMP4, WebM, MOV and M4V videoOutputVerified H.264/AAC MP4

Attachment limits are the reason a video bounces or silently fails to send: Gmail stops at 25 MB, many corporate mail servers at 10, and the limit that matters is the recipient’s, not yours. Choose the cap you need to clear, check that the result is still readable, and get an MP4 that will actually arrive.

Target the recipient’s limit, and go lower

Mail systems vary widely — 25 MB is common for consumer providers, 20 for some, and 10 or even less for corporate servers with conservative policies. You rarely know which one is on the other end, so aim well below the smallest plausible cap: under 10 MB clears almost everything. There is a second reason to leave room. Attachments are encoded for transport, which inflates them by roughly a third, so a 20 MB file can be measured as around 27 MB by the server that rejects it.

When the video needs to stay readable

Most videos emailed to colleagues are screen recordings — a bug, a demo, a walkthrough — and those live or die on whether the text is legible. Small text is the first thing to disintegrate at a low bitrate, so check the compressed version at full size before sending rather than trusting a thumbnail. If it is not readable at 10 MB, the fix is usually to trim to the essential twenty seconds rather than to drop the resolution, because reducing resolution is precisely what makes text unreadable.

When to send a link instead

Past a certain length, email is the wrong transport. A five-minute screen recording compressed to 10 MB will be unpleasant to watch, and no setting fixes that — the budget simply is not there. Uploading to a file service and sending a link keeps the quality, avoids attachment limits entirely, and is what most mail providers now nudge you toward automatically. Reserve attachments for short clips where the convenience of having the file in the thread is worth the compression.

Questions, answered

What size should I compress a video to for email?

Under 10 MB clears almost every mail server. Gmail allows 25 MB, but corporate systems are often far stricter, and you rarely know the recipient’s limit in advance.

Why was my 20 MB attachment rejected by a 25 MB limit?

Attachments are encoded for transport, which adds roughly a third to their size. A 20 MB file can be measured at around 27 MB by the receiving server.

My screen recording is unreadable after compressing — what should I do?

Trim to the essential moments rather than lowering the resolution. Small text is the first thing to break at a low bitrate, and cutting length returns bitrate to what remains.

When should I use a link instead of an attachment?

Any time the video is more than a minute or two. Compressing a long recording to 10 MB makes it unwatchable, and a link keeps the quality and avoids limits entirely.

What format is best for email?

H.264 MP4 — it opens on any recipient’s machine without extra software, which matters more for email than the last few percent of compression efficiency.

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