The Best Video Compressor for Discord in 2026

Discord's free upload limit is 20MB again. Discord raised it from 10MB in August 2026, and Nitro Basic still gets 50MB while full Nitro gets 500MB. A 20MB cap sounds roomy until you record 30 seconds of gameplay at 1080p and the file comes out at 90MB.

I built SquishyFile, so I have a horse in this race. I put it in this list anyway, next to the tools people actually recommend in Discord servers. Every fact about another tool comes from that tool's own site as of October 2026, and every SquishyFile fact comes from what my code does. Where another option is the better pick, I say so.

Quick comparison

What 20MB actually gets you

One thing no tool can change: 20MB is about 160 megabits. Spread over a 60-second clip, that leaves roughly 2.5 Mbps for the picture once the audio takes its share. That's enough for clean 1080p with little motion and fine 720p for most gameplay. At two minutes the budget halves and 720p is the realistic ceiling. My video bitrate chart shows what each resolution needs.

1. SquishyFile

SquishyFile's Discord video compressor opens with the target already set to 20MB, with Nitro Basic and Nitro as one-tap switches. You drop the clip in, press Squish and drag the MP4 into Discord.

The compression runs inside your browser tab. Your device does the encoding through the browser's WebCodecs API, using the hardware video encoder most recent phones and laptops have, and older formats like AVI or FLV go through a WebAssembly build of FFmpeg. Nothing gets uploaded, so the only wait is your device encoding, and the largest file it takes is whatever your device can open. After encoding, SquishyFile checks the real output size and runs another pass if the file still came out over the limit, which is what stops a 20.3MB file from bouncing off Discord.

Good: any input size your device can open, exact MB targets, output that always plays in Discord's preview.

Not so good: it doesn't trim or mute, and an old, slow laptop will take a while on a long 4K file.

2. 8mb.video

8mb.video is the tool people have been linking in Discord servers for years, back when the free limit was 8MB. It now has presets for 8, 10, 20, 25, 50 and 100MB, plus a custom size up to 200MB.

It uploads your video to its server, compresses it there and keeps the file for up to 20 minutes. What it does better than most tools here is editing: you can set start and end times and strip the audio before compressing. Cutting a 40-second clip to the 15 seconds that matter gives every second almost three times the bitrate, so the result looks a lot better at the same 20MB.

Good: trim and mute built in, dead simple.

Not so good: the upload adds a wait on big files, and the only quality control is one "Extra quality" checkbox.

I compared the two in more depth in SquishyFile vs 8mb.video.

3. VidCrush

VidCrush is a free compressor built around platform limits, with a Discord 20MB preset, WhatsApp, email and more, plus a "fit to limit" mode. Its FAQ says it encodes on its own servers with FFmpeg and H.264, uses two-pass encoding, and deletes uploads within an hour. It caps uploads at 500MB per file.

It also has useful guides, including a table of video size limits for more than 30 platforms.

Good: clear presets, two-pass encoding, works the same on an old computer as on a new one.

Not so good: the 500MB cap rules out a few minutes of 4K phone footage, and the upload is part of the wait.

Full comparison: SquishyFile vs VidCrush.

4. FreeConvert

FreeConvert is a big general file converter with a video compressor in it. It doesn't take a target in MB. You set a percentage of the original file, so for a 120MB clip headed to Discord you work out 20 divided by 120 yourself and type about 16 percent, then aim a little lower to be safe.

Where it pulls ahead is control. It can output H.265, which makes much smaller files than H.264, and it has resize and quality options. The catch for Discord is playback: H.265 support depends on each viewer's device and browser, so on some computers the clip won't play in the chat preview and your friends have to download it. The free plan allows files up to 1GB and 20 conversion minutes a day.

Good: H.265, lots of settings, many input formats.

Not so good: percentage maths instead of a size, daily limits, and H.265 may not play in the Discord preview for everyone.

Full comparison: SquishyFile vs FreeConvert.

5. HandBrake

HandBrake is the free desktop encoder that a lot of people in tech-minded servers will tell you to use. It has social presets built for 25MB and, since version 1.10, 10MB, tuned for clips of a set length. There's no preset aimed at exactly 20MB, so for Discord free you either use the 10MB one and accept a smaller file than you need, or set an average bitrate yourself.

If you compress clips every day, HandBrake is worth learning. You get batch queues, trimming, cropping and every encoder setting there is. For one clip, installing it and reading presets is a lot of work. I wrote about the settings that matter in HandBrake compress video settings, and about when you don't need it in HandBrake alternatives.

Good: full control, batch jobs, works offline.

Not so good: a desktop install, and hitting exactly 20MB takes manual bitrate maths.

6. Skip compressing: Nitro or a link

Sometimes the right answer is to not squeeze the video at all. A 5-minute 1080p clip at 20MB will look rough in any tool, because the bitrate simply isn't there.

Nitro Basic raises your limit to 50MB and full Nitro to 500MB. If you post long clips often, that's cheaper than fighting with compression every week. And for a one-off long video, uploading it to YouTube as unlisted or to Google Drive and pasting the link works fine. Discord shows a YouTube link as a playable embed right in the chat.

Which one should you use?

Use SquishyFile if the clip is already the length you want, the file is big or your upload is slow, or it's a video you'd rather not send to a server.

Use 8mb.video if you need to cut the clip or drop the sound at the same time. Trimming does more for quality than any encoder setting.

Use VidCrush if your computer is old, your upload is fast and the file is under 500MB.

Use FreeConvert if you want H.265 or manual settings and you're fine with your friends downloading the file.

Use HandBrake if you compress clips all the time and want full control.

Pay for Nitro or send a link if the video is several minutes long and has to look good.

Whatever you pick, compress from the original recording, not a copy that's already been compressed. Every re-encode adds new loss, and I measured how fast it piles up in how many times you can compress a video.

Got a clip that's too big for Discord right now? Try the Discord video compressor, or the 8MB and 10MB versions if a server or bot still uses an older limit.