Compress an image to 10 KB

What 10 KB can hold

Expect a small image around 150x150 to 200x200 pixels for a face, and a clean result for flat graphics. A scanned signature in grayscale fits comfortably and stays readable, which is the most common reason people need this size.

Because the budget is so small, the surest path is to resize the image first down to a modest box. Shrinking pixels does most of the work, and the quality slider then has far less to give away.

Where 10 KB shows up

A handful of strict exam portals and older registration forms demand a 10 KB signature or thumbnail. These systems store many files and were tuned to keep each one tiny.

Convert signatures to grayscale and crop to just the ink. Removing the white border and the unused color channels frees up most of your 10 KB for the strokes that actually need to stay sharp.

PNG will not get there, and that is not a bug

If you are starting from a PNG and the tool cannot reach 10 KB, the format is the reason. PNG is lossless, so it has no quality to trade away. A photographic PNG will sit far above 10 KB no matter what you do to it.

Convert it to JPG first, then compress. JPG is lossy by design and can keep shedding bytes until it matches the target. For a scanned signature, converting to grayscale before the JPG step frees up more of the budget for the strokes.