Image tools that keep photos on your device

Short answer: To convert, resize, compress, crop or clean up an image, choose the job first and then export a new copy in the format and size you need. QuickMerge handles the image locally in your browser without uploading it.

These tools open your image with the browser's own graphics engine, so the photo is never sent to a QuickMerge server. That matters most for pictures that carry GPS coordinates or personal detail.

7 tools in this canonical category. Supported operations use local browser processing; see how to inspect a specific workflow.

Change format

When a site or app refuses the file you have.

Change size or shape

For upload limits, print sizes and profile pictures.

  • Compress image — Reduce image file size while choosing how much quality to keep.
  • Resize image — Set exact pixel dimensions or scale by a percentage.
  • Crop image — Crop to a custom selection or a fixed aspect ratio.

Before you post or send

Photos carry more than the picture. Check this first.

Resize, crop and compress do different jobs

These three get confused constantly, and picking the wrong one is why images come out blurry or still too large. Resizing changes pixel dimensions. Cropping removes part of the picture. Compression changes how efficiently the remaining pixels are stored, without changing dimensions at all.

If a file is too large for an upload form, dimensions usually dominate: halving the width typically cuts the file to roughly a quarter before quality is touched. Reach for compression second, once the dimensions are right. And when you need both a crop and a resize, crop first — cropping then resizing keeps the most detail in the part you kept.

Choosing a format

JPG is lossy and suits photographs, where the loss is hard to see. It is a poor choice for screenshots, diagrams and anything with sharp edges, where it produces visible fringing around text. PNG is lossless and supports transparency, which makes it right for logos and line art and wrong for photographs, where it commonly produces a file several times larger for no visible gain.

WebP usually beats both at the same visual quality and every current browser reads it. The caveat is other people’s software: some older desktop applications and print workflows still reject it, so confirm before sending a WebP into someone else’s system rather than onto a web page. HEIC from an iPhone and JFIF from Windows are both compatibility conversions rather than quality ones.

Strip metadata before publishing

A photograph straight off a phone commonly embeds GPS coordinates accurate to a few metres, along with the camera model, editing software and exact capture time. A picture posted from home can carry a home address in a field nobody looks at.

Large social platforms usually remove this on upload, but email attachments, cloud share links and direct transfers do not. Anywhere the original file changes hands, the metadata goes with it. Strip it yourself before sending rather than relying on the destination.

Guides for these tools

Questions people ask

Does compressing an image remove its EXIF data?

Do not rely on it. Use Remove image metadata explicitly if your goal is to strip GPS coordinates or camera details before sharing a photo.

Which format should I choose?

JPG for photographs, PNG when you need sharp edges or transparency, and WebP when you want a smaller file and the destination supports it.

Why was my file rejected?

Each tool checks that the file really contains the format its extension claims. A file renamed from one format to another is rejected rather than converted into something misleading.

How do I make an image under 2MB?

Reduce the pixel dimensions first with the resizer — file size falls roughly with the square of the width — then compress if it is still over the limit. Doing it the other way around usually means compressing an image far larger than it needs to be.

Which format should I use for a website?

WebP for almost everything, with JPG as the fallback for photographs and PNG where you need transparency or crisp text and lines.

Why did my image get bigger after converting?

A photographic JPEG can become larger as PNG. Compare the actual bytes and required features before choosing a format; no fixed saving applies to every image.

Does resizing an image remove its GPS data?

Re-encoding usually drops most metadata, but do not rely on it. If removing location and camera data is the goal, use the metadata remover, which is built for it and reports what it found.

Can I convert iPhone HEIC photos?

Try the HEIC converter with a supported file. It saves only the first decoded image from a multi-image container; decoding can fail for unsupported variants. Keep the original for auxiliary images, motion and metadata.

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