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Compressing photos in Android (byte count)?

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Carlos E. R.

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Oct 16, 2022, 1:35:15 PM10/16/22

Hi,

Suddenly I decided I need an application in the phone to reduce the size
(byte count) of photos before sending them via email. The camera
typically makes big photos and gmail bounces them if you send a few on
one email.

So I have been searching. I asked google: "android app to compress photos"

The first hit was this link:
<https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/best-android-apps-reduce-image-size/>. I
also looked at
<https://www.guidingtech.com/best-ways-to-reduce-photo-size-on-android/>

And I have been testing apps.

<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.photocompress.photoeditor>

Photo Compressor and Resizer
Pocket App Maker
Contains ads
4.8 star 29.2K reviews
1M+ Downloads
PEGI 3

This is the one I am using. Reasonably good. You can compress in auto
mode or specify the target size. I have just discovered that if you ask
to compress 4 photos and say 2.5 MB, that's the total size, not single
photo size.

It compresses to a different folder and renames the photos to compressed_...

It can also resize, crop, convert format, rotate, remove a color, and
something called "Material Design Color". I have only tried "Compress".
When it does the job, it shamelessly ask you to score the app.

I think it changes compression ratio and pixel numbers. I do not want
the later, but...

<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mobso.photoreducer.lite&hl=en_US&gl=US>

Compress image size in kb & mb
Mobso Apps
Contains ads
4.4 star 8.6K reviews
5M+ Downloads
Content rating Everyone

AKA QReduce Lite

Too simple. Choose one photo, chose size or quality, compress, use the
photo right away. Not clear where it saves the photo. Not profesional
looking app.

<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.xnview.XnResizeLite>

Resize Me! - Photo resizer
XnView
Contains ads
3.5 star
5.77K reviews
1M+ Downloads
Content rating PEGI 3

Menu is "crop & resize", "take photo", "batch resize".

Problem is I do not want to crop. Then it asks for a size in pixels, and
I want to keep the pixel number.

So drop the app.

<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vinson.shrinker>

Dead link.

<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pixlr.express>

Pixlr – Photo Editor
Inmagine Lab | Pixlr
Contains adsIn-app purchases
4.2 star
1.21M reviewsinfo
50M+ Downloads
Content rating PEGI 3

This is the best app, apparently, but I simply did not find the resize
tool. It is a photo editor.

Any more suggestions of apps you have tried?

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

curmudgeon

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Oct 16, 2022, 4:36:23 PM10/16/22

Carlos E. R. wrote at Sun, 16 Oct 2022 19:35:13 +0200 :

> Any more suggestions of apps you have tried?

What suggestions I can give you that I know myself are that some Android
camera apps (such as the Samsung default camera app) have an option to
compress to HEIC format which is said to be smaller than JPEG but which is
harder to share when you try to send them to others on non-Apple platforms.

Another suggestion I can give from personal experience is that some
messaging apps have an automatic JPEG size compression setting too.

Otherwise, you're on the right track to use a tailored compression app.

You already have three but I noticed all of them contains ads where my
search on the google play store found a few more, all of which are higher
than a 4 rating (the first of which is 4.6) & all are free with no ads.

Image Compressor Lite
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=in.dfeverx.imagecompression

Photo Resize
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sybu.imageresizer

Photo Resizer
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.codeseed.labs.photooptimizer

If you end up using any of them, please do let the group know how they work
our for you as I've never used any of those compression app since I send
photos via my messenger app which does compression automatically for me.

The rec photo digital group may know more about compression but maybe not
about compression using Android programs such as those listed above do.

Carlos E. R.

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Oct 16, 2022, 4:53:24 PM10/16/22

On 16/10/2022 22.36, curmudgeon wrote:
> Carlos E. R. wrote at Sun, 16 Oct 2022 19:35:13 +0200 :
>
>> Any more suggestions of apps you have tried?
>
> What suggestions I can give you that I know myself are that some Android
> camera apps (such as the Samsung default camera app) have an option to
> compress to HEIC format which is said to be smaller than JPEG but which is
> harder to share when you try to send them to others on non-Apple platforms.

No, HEIC is not an option.

>
> Another suggestion I can give from personal experience is that some
> messaging apps have an automatic JPEG size compression setting too.

As far as I know, not the gmail app. Sometimes it triggers sending a
link instead (to google drive), transparently, but not always.

>
> Otherwise, you're on the right track to use a tailored compression app.
>
> You already have three but I noticed all of them contains ads where my
> search on the google play store found a few more, all of which are higher
> than a 4 rating (the first of which is 4.6) & all are free with no ads.

Yes, no adds is a good thing, if the apps are good enough :-)

>
> Image Compressor Lite
> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=in.dfeverx.imagecompression
>
> Photo Resize
> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sybu.imageresizer
>
> Photo Resizer
> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.codeseed.labs.photooptimizer
>
> If you end up using any of them, please do let the group know how they work
> our for you as I've never used any of those compression app since I send
> photos via my messenger app which does compression automatically for me.
>
> The rec photo digital group may know more about compression but maybe not
> about compression using Android programs such as those listed above do.

Well, I asked for already tested apps, but OK, I'll have a look, thanks.

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

curmudgeon

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Oct 16, 2022, 4:56:19 PM10/16/22

Carlos E. R. wrote at Sun, 16 Oct 2022 22:53:22 +0200 :

> Well, I asked for already tested apps, but OK, I'll have a look, thanks.

I installed all three but I don't know when/if I will get a chance to test
them so if you test them first, let the group know as will I do the same.

VanguardLH

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Oct 16, 2022, 10:20:15 PM10/16/22

Rather than consume excess bandwidth by the recipients to get your huge
e-mails because you attached photos to them (which they may not want,
anyway, and just want to read the message), why not send them URLs
pointing to the photos? You won't hit message size limits by putting
URLs into your e-mails, you don't waste your bandwidth to upload huge
e-mails, and you don't offend your recipients having to download huge
e-mails from you with photo attachments they may not care about.

You could upload you photos to an online storage service. Some are
free, like Imgur (imgur.com). Recipients don't need to login into an
account nor be assigned permissions to see your photos at Imgur;
however, anyone else with the URL to your photos can see them, too.

https://help.imgur.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000083326-What-files-can-I-upload-Is-there-a-size-limit-

You could upload your photos to your Google Photos account which gets
them automatically reduced in size, and send URLs to the photos in your
e-mails. You will need to share the photo folder under which you store
your photos. Go into your Google Photos account to decide if original
size or reduced size are used to store your photos.

https://support.google.com/photos/answer/6220791

With URLs in your e-mail pointing to where you uploaded your photos, not
only do your save your bandwidth and that of the recipient(s), but
sending the e-mails, bouncing them between SMTP servers, and retrieving
them will be a LOT faster.

Attaching binaries to e-mails will enlarge them by about 33%. That
means attaching a 15 MB photo to your e-mail will have it enlarged to
almost 20 MB, and many e-mail services have a quota on max message size
that 20 MB could exceed. The recipient's Inbox could already have
messages stored in it (lots of users use their Inbox as an archive
instead of moving pending/old messages into archival folders), so your
huge e-mail could exceed what is left of their storage quota, or exceed
the max size per message quota. Binary attachments are converted into
long encoded text strings (because EVERYTHING in e-mail is sent as text,
including HTML which is text with tags, and attachments that are encoded
into text strings). Those encoded text strings are stored in MIME parts
within the body of the message. Whether you use inline or attached
binary attachments, the same MIME parts get created (with disposition
attributes of inline or attached as a hint to the client where to
display the attachments). Not only are you creating a huge e-mail by
attaching photos, those photos are getting inflated by another third to
encode into text MIME parts.

Be polite to your recipients by giving them URLs to your photos instead
of sending them huge e-mails.

If you are determined to send huge e-mails to your recipients, convert
PNG to JPG. Also, with JPG, you can change compression with just about
any image editor. A JPG compressed to 72% will usually look just as
good to the human eye as a non-compressed JPG at 100% of its original
resolution. You can find many JPG editor apps at the Google Play Store,
but you'll want one that lets you choose a compression level on save.
Sorry, I upload my photos and put URLs to them in my e-mails, so I don't
putz with JPG editors on my Android smartphone.

You can find JPG editor app reviews online, like:

https://fossbytes.com/best-android-photo-editor-apps/

You'd have to check if the app page or author's web site mentions a JPG
compression either as an edit function or on save. The Snapseed app is
from Google, but I couldn't find mention of compression at their web
site (https://support.google.com/snapseed). Many JPG compress apps are
found at:

https://play.google.com/store/search?q=jpg%20compress&c=apps

If you just want to compress a photo without any editing tools (that
might include compression), there are online reviews for those, too.

https://techviral.net/apps-to-reduce-image-size/

Erholt Rhein

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Oct 17, 2022, 4:58:29 AM10/17/22

On Sun, 16 Oct 2022 21:20:12 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

> Rather than consume excess bandwidth by the recipients to get your huge
> e-mails because you attached photos to them (which they may not want,
> anyway, and just want to read the message), why not send them URLs
> pointing to the photos?

There are many reasons "why not" put your photos on someone's server.

Some people don't want pictures of their kids, for example, on the net.
Some photo sharing sites require accounts.
Some require money.

> Be polite to your recipients by giving them URLs to your photos instead
> of sending them huge e-mails.

Or, shrink them to a manageable size, like oh, say, 300KB.

> You can find many JPG editor apps at the Google Play Store,
> but you'll want one that lets you choose a compression level on save.

Carlos E. R.

unread,

Oct 17, 2022, 5:09:11 AM10/17/22

On 17/10/2022 04.20, VanguardLH wrote:

> "Carlos E. R." <> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Suddenly I decided I need an application in the phone to reduce the size
>> (byte count) of photos before sending them via email. The camera
>> typically makes big photos and gmail bounces them if you send a few on
>> one email.

>>
>> Any more suggestions of apps you have tried?
>
> Rather than consume excess bandwidth by the recipients to get your huge
> e-mails because you attached photos to them (which they may not want,
> anyway, and just want to read the message), why not send them URLs
> pointing to the photos? You won't hit message size limits by putting
> URLs into your e-mails, you don't waste your bandwidth to upload huge
> e-mails, and you don't offend your recipients having to download huge
> e-mails from you with photo attachments they may not care about.

I am aware of that, and sometimes I do. But I do want to email, just
smaller files, as I know these people are not offended, and they do the
same thing :-)

> If you are determined to send huge e-mails to your recipients, convert
> PNG to JPG.

I don't have pngs.

> Also, with JPG, you can change compression with just about
> any image editor.

And that's precisely what I'm seeking for. A dedicated simple editor for
the purpose of increasing compression. One that you have tried and know
it is good.

> You can find JPG editor app reviews online, like:
>
> https://fossbytes.com/best-android-photo-editor-apps/
>
> You'd have to check if the app page or author's web site mentions a JPG
> compression either as an edit function or on save. The Snapseed app is
> from Google, but I couldn't find mention of compression at their web
> site (https://support.google.com/snapseed). Many JPG compress apps are
> found at:
>
> https://play.google.com/store/search?q=jpg%20compress&c=apps
>
> If you just want to compress a photo without any editing tools (that
> might include compression), there are online reviews for those, too.
>
> https://techviral.net/apps-to-reduce-image-size/

Thanks for those links.

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

Carlos E. R.

unread,

Oct 17, 2022, 5:19:02 AM10/17/22

On 17/10/2022 10.58, Erholt Rhein wrote:
> On Sun, 16 Oct 2022 21:20:12 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:
>
>> Rather than consume excess bandwidth by the recipients to get your huge
>> e-mails because you attached photos to them (which they may not want,
>> anyway, and just want to read the message), why not send them URLs
>> pointing to the photos?
>
> There are many reasons "why not" put your photos on someone's server.
>
> Some people don't want pictures of their kids, for example, on the net.
> Some photo sharing sites require accounts.
> Some require money.

Some fail and corrupt the photos (Google photos, recently)

>
>> Be polite to your recipients by giving them URLs to your photos instead
>> of sending them huge e-mails.
>
> Or, shrink them to a manageable size, like oh, say, 300KB.

Yep.

>
>> You can find many JPG editor apps at the Google Play Store,
>> but you'll want one that lets you choose a compression level on save.
>
> He has a half dozen of these programs to test and report back upon.
>
>> https://fossbytes.com/best-android-photo-editor-apps/
>
> Those are editors, not compression programs.
>
> Besides, he asked for compression, and his first three choices were all
> free and he mentioned that he'd prefer no ads if he can get the compression
> features he needs without having to suffer ads on his phone.

Right.

The one I'm using
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.photocompress.photoeditor>

puts a little banner at the top, it doesn't make working with it harder.
It is acceptable.

> For example, Snapseed has only 6 JPG size settings & only 3 compression
> settings.

Sorry, what's gsf?

It's google own's. Interesting.

That's a large list. Thanks, I'll have a look at some :-)

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

Erholt Rhein

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Oct 17, 2022, 5:47:03 AM10/17/22

On Mon, 17 Oct 2022 11:19:00 +0200, Carlos E. R. wrote:

>> For example, Snapseed has only 6 JPG size settings & only 3 compression
>> settings.
>
> Sorry, what's gsf?

Google Spyware.
It's provided free to independent developers to link into their code.

https://www.arnabee.com/what-is-google-services-framework/
"Google Services Framework is responsible for handling the communication
between Google services and Android applications."

Isn't that nice of Google to allow developers to link in communication to
Google servers?

>> Of those 12, only Snapseed comes close to the op's stated needs (the ad
>> free VSCO editor required a login account when I tested it for the op).
>
> It's google own's. Interesting.

I tested Snapseed which contains that Google gsf spyware and it does
compress but it only has the following "image sizing" settings.
1. Do not resize
2. 4000 px
3. 2000 px
4. 1920 px
5. 1366 px
6. 800 px

And Snapseed only has the following "Format and quality" settings.
1. JPG 100%
2. JPG 95%
3. JPG 80%
4. PNG

If those options work for you and if you don't mind the Google spyware,
then it will work for you but others without spyware exist to test.

>> Note that there were over 50 programs in your suggested listings, only four
>> of which were worth testing given the op's original stated criteria.
>> 1. Snapseed
>> 2. Photo Compress
>> 3. Photoczip
>> 4. Photo Tools
>>
>> I installed all of them but I won't have more time to further test so let's
>> hope the op will test them to let us know which ones he found to be best.
>
> That's a large list. Thanks, I'll have a look at some :-)

The list from VanguardLH was large but I culled it down for you based on
putting the apps that were free and devoid of apps & spyware first in line.

1. Snapseed has very few discrete compression & size settings.
2. Photo Compress has adjustable compression & size sliders.
3. Photoczip has infinite compression & size type-in entries.
4. Photo Tools has adjustable compression & size sliders.

My suggestion is to try the latter three and write back with which you like
best and why they worked well for you.

Carlos E. R.

unread,

Oct 17, 2022, 6:03:12 AM10/17/22

On 17/10/2022 11.47, Erholt Rhein wrote:
> On Mon, 17 Oct 2022 11:19:00 +0200, Carlos E. R. wrote:
>
>>> For example, Snapseed has only 6 JPG size settings & only 3 compression
>>> settings.
>>
>> Sorry, what's gsf?
>
> Google Spyware.
> It's provided free to independent developers to link into their code.
>
> https://www.arnabee.com/what-is-google-services-framework/
> "Google Services Framework is responsible for handling the communication
> between Google services and Android applications."

:-D !

>
> Isn't that nice of Google to allow developers to link in communication to
> Google servers?
>
>>> Of those 12, only Snapseed comes close to the op's stated needs (the ad
>>> free VSCO editor required a login account when I tested it for the op).
>>
>> It's google own's. Interesting.
>
> I tested Snapseed which contains that Google gsf spyware and it does
> compress but it only has the following "image sizing" settings.
> 1. Do not resize
> 2. 4000 px
> 3. 2000 px
> 4. 1920 px
> 5. 1366 px
> 6. 800 px
>
> And Snapseed only has the following "Format and quality" settings.
> 1. JPG 100%
> 2. JPG 95%
> 3. JPG 80%
> 4. PNG
>
> If those options work for you and if you don't mind the Google spyware,
> then it will work for you but others without spyware exist to test.

Maybe the app I found yesterday is the best so far.

<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.photocompress.photoeditor>

Photo Compressor and Resizer
Pocket App Maker
Contains ads
4.8 star 29.2K reviews
1M+ Downloads
PEGI 3

>

>>> Note that there were over 50 programs in your suggested listings, only four
>>> of which were worth testing given the op's original stated criteria.
>>> 1. Snapseed
>>> 2. Photo Compress
>>> 3. Photoczip
>>> 4. Photo Tools
>>>
>>> I installed all of them but I won't have more time to further test so let's
>>> hope the op will test them to let us know which ones he found to be best.
>>
>> That's a large list. Thanks, I'll have a look at some :-)
>
> The list from VanguardLH was large but I culled it down for you based on
> putting the apps that were free and devoid of apps & spyware first in line.
>
> 1. Snapseed has very few discrete compression & size settings.
> 2. Photo Compress has adjustable compression & size sliders.
> 3. Photoczip has infinite compression & size type-in entries.
> 4. Photo Tools has adjustable compression & size sliders.
>
> My suggestion is to try the latter three and write back with which you like
> best and why they worked well for you.

I will, just not now because I have to do other more pressing things.
Perhaps later in the day.

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

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