How to compress a video for email online

You’d be lucky to find an email provider that allows you to send an attachment over 20MB. These days, that can amount to just a few photos sent from your phone, making it just about impossible to send videos you’ve downloaded from the internet - or taken yourself - as email attachments. They’re just too big.

Luckily, there is a way around this and that’s through some good old compression. Yes, it might sound like a very traditional way of doing things, but if you need to send some clips through email - it’s the best way.

And we’re not talking about the old fashioned way of adding your video to a zip file. Oh no - that won’t reduce the size of a large video by anywhere near enough. What you need is a video compressor tool, which will ensure even larger files are squashed down to just under 18MB so they can fit snugly in your attachments folder.

Want to know how to do it easily, without needing to download and install storage-hungry software? Read on to find out how to compress a video file for email online via your browser. It’s super fast, easy and - best of all - free...

  1. Upload your oversized video

    Head over to Clideo’s Video Compressor from your browser to begin compressing your video for sending over email. You can choose any video file that’s less than 500MB in size, for free, and this can be uploaded from any device (as long as it’s connected to the internet!). That means Android, iPhone, Mac, or Windows.

    To upload your video, either click the big blue Choose file button and search for the clip you’d like to compress from your system, or if you have it saved in the cloud already - tap the downwards-facing arrow and select it from your Google Drive or Dropbox accounts. The tool works with most popular video formats, such as MP4, WMV, MOV, VOB, and AVI, for instance.

  2. Compress video file for email

    Once your file has been selected, it will begin to upload to the Clideo servers. You’ll be presented with some text asking you to hold on. Depending on the size of your video, you may need to wait a little while until the tool sets up the necessary parameters to compress your clip, so hang tight!

  3. Save the newly-compressed clip

    Once your video has finished processing, you’ll be taken to the editor page where you can preview it back to ensure it’s to your liking. You can now download the video back to your device, or to cloud storage providers Google Drive or Dropbox, via the green Download button.

    At the top of the page the Clideo tool will tell you the old and new size of the video file you’ve compressed and the percentage it has been reduced by, ensuring it’s the perfect size for any email attachment.

We are regularly improving our tools to add new features or enhance your experience. Check our Help Center for the most recent instructions.