Gigback

How to compress videos and photos on iPhone without losing albums or location

By Filip Djordjevic, who makes Gigback · Updated

Short answer: To make new videos and photos smaller on iPhone, choose High Efficiency in Settings, Camera, Formats, and pick a lower resolution or frame rate in Settings, Camera, Record Video. For videos already in your library, the Photos app can trim, but Apple documents no way to shrink the file. For that, use an app that saves a smaller copy and keeps the original’s albums, favorite, location and date.

How do you make new videos and photos smaller on iPhone?

Change two Camera settings, and everything you record from then on takes less space. The first is the capture format. With High Efficiency, iPhone captures photos in HEIF and videos in HEVC, and Apple says these formats “offer better compression than JPEG and H.264, so they use less storage space on your devices and iCloud Photos, while preserving the same visual quality.” These are Apple’s steps:

  1. Open Settings, then tap Camera.
  2. Tap Formats, then tap High Efficiency. The other choice, Most Compatible, records JPEG and H.264, which more devices can open but which use more space.
  3. Go back to Camera, tap Record Video, then choose a lower resolution or frame rate from the list your iPhone supports.

Apple’s note on that list is plain: “Faster frame rates and higher resolutions result in larger video files.” You can also change it in the Camera app: in Video mode, tap the resolution and frame rate values on screen.

On models that support them, two more switches in Settings, Camera, Formats make files larger by design. Apple says ProRes videos “result in larger file sizes,” and that ProRAW photos retain more information, “resulting in larger file sizes.” Leave them off unless you need them.

All of this shapes what you record next. Apple describes the format setting as applying to new photos and videos. For what is already in your library, read on.

Can the Photos app make an existing video smaller?

Not in any way Apple documents. In Apple’s iPhone User Guide, the Photos app can trim a video, crop it, change its speed and edit its audio, and none of these is described as a way to reduce the file size.

Trimming is not compression. It changes where a clip starts and stops. Save Video keeps the edit reversible: open the video, tap Edit, then tap Revert. Save Video as New Clip saves both versions, so it adds a video rather than shrinking one.

For a single image file, the Preview app can make a smaller copy. Open the image in Preview, tap the chevron next to the filename, tap Export, choose HEIC or JPEG, then use the slider to adjust the file size. Preview works on image files, which it finds through Recents, Shared and Browse.

Is Optimize iPhone Storage a better fit?

If you use iCloud Photos, it is the built-in way to save space on your iPhone without making anything smaller. Apple says that with Optimize iPhone Storage on, “full-resolution photos and videos are stored in iCloud, and, when needed, space-saving copies are stored on your device.” It is on by default when you use iCloud Photos. To check it:

  1. Open Settings, tap your name, tap iCloud, then tap Photos.
  2. Turn on Sync this iPhone.
  3. In iOS 27 or later, tap iPhone Storage.
  4. Make sure Optimize iPhone Storage is turned on.

The trade is iPhone space for iCloud space. Your originals keep their full size in iCloud. Every iCloud account includes 5 GB of free storage, and more needs an iCloud+ plan.

Compressing and optimizing overlap. With Optimize iPhone Storage on, many originals live only in iCloud, and what sits on your iPhone is already a space-saving copy. Compressing those frees little space on the iPhone.

How Gigback handles this

Gigback saves a smaller copy of a photo or video at High, Balanced or Small quality. To try one item first, pull a card up and tap Compress. Gigback makes the copy, you look at it full screen or play it, and then you save it or discard it. The work happens on your iPhone, with Apple’s on-device frameworks.

A compressed copy is a new item, and a new item in Photos belongs to no album. So Gigback gives the copy the original’s date, location and favorite, adds it to the same albums you made, and keeps it hidden if the original was hidden. A photo copy also keeps the details stored in the file, such as the camera and lens. Photo copies are saved as JPEG, and a video copy has to run the full length of its original or it is thrown away. Every copy also goes to a Gigback Compressed album, and each original moves to Gigback’s review bin. Nothing is deleted until you delete it from the bin and confirm in the dialog iOS shows.

Some items are left as they are. Live Photos, RAW photos, and Spatial, Cinematic, slow-motion and Portrait items have features the compressor cannot keep, and anything already small enough would gain nothing. Neither counts as a failure.

Why free space goes down first. The smaller copy is saved before the original goes, so for a while both exist. Space comes back once you delete the originals from the bin and Recently Deleted is emptied, which iOS does after 30 days, or you can do it yourself in Photos. See why deleted photos still take up space.

Gigback Pro adds bulk compression of your library, videos, photos or chosen albums. Before a run, you see the estimated savings and a check that there is room for the copies, with some space held back so the iPhone stays usable. Gigback checks again before every item. If space runs out, the run stops cleanly and tells you to clear the bin and Recently Deleted, then resume. Long runs can continue while your iPhone is locked, though iOS decides how long background work may run. An interrupted run resumes at the same quality and skips what is already done.

A bulk run never downloads originals from iCloud. Items stored only there are skipped and counted separately. If a run is compressing nothing at all, for example because most originals are in iCloud, it stops early rather than run for hours. A single compression you tap can download its original, because you chose that one item.

Free includes 10 single compressions in total, not per day. One is used only when you keep a copy, so a preview you discard costs nothing. Pro, monthly, yearly or a one-time Lifetime purchase, adds bulk compression and unlimited single compressions. More answers are in the support FAQ.

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