How do I compress photos to email them?

1. Drop the whole batch. The compressor takes all your photos at once — no per-file clicking. Each is optimized independently to the target.
2. Pick 500 KB (the email sweet spot). At 500 KB a photo is visually identical on screen and 20 photos still fit one email. For portals with stricter caps, the 100 KB and 200 KB targets exist too.
3. Download the ZIP, attach, send. One ZIP with every compressed photo, named like the originals. Attach it — or the individual files — and the send button stops complaining.

A 60 MB vacation set typically compresses to under 10 MB in seconds — one email instead of six, with no visible difference on any screen.

The attachment math nobody explains

Email encodes attachments in base64, inflating them ~33% on the wire — a "24 MB" attachment set actually exceeds a 25 MB cap. Aim for 18–20 MB of real files per message. At 500 KB per photo that is a comfortable 35+ photos; at raw phone sizes it is three.

When should you NOT compress?

When the recipient will print or edit the photos. Compression optimizes for screens; print wants every pixel. For those cases send a cloud link to the originals — and compress a preview set for the email body so the recipient sees what they are getting.