Compress images for WhatsApp without the blur

When you send a photo as a photo, WhatsApp re-encodes it. In standard quality the long side is cut to roughly 1600 px and the JPEG is compressed to a small file, often around 100 to 200 KB. With the HD option (the HD button above the photo, or Settings › Storage and data › Media upload quality › HD quality) the limit rises to about 4096 px and the file to about 1 MB, but it is still recompressed.

The blur people complain about comes from big, detailed originals being crushed in one step. A photo that already has the right pixels and a clean encode survives the second pass far better. That is what the WhatsApp presets here produce.

1. Prepare, then send as photo. Use the Chat photo preset (1600 px, under 1 MB) and send normally. Fastest for the receiver, looks clean.
2. Prepare, then send as HD. Use the HD photo preset and tap HD before sending. Best balance of quality and size.
3. Send as document. Attach the file with the Document option instead of Gallery. WhatsApp sends the bytes untouched (up to 2 GB), but the receiver has to open it as a file.

On a phone, tap Share after compressing and choose WhatsApp: the file goes straight into the chat.

A WhatsApp profile photo (DP) is a square shown at around 640×640. A status image is 1080×1920 like an Instagram story, and WhatsApp keeps the centre 1080×1350 safe from its interface. Both have their own preset in the Placement menu above, or use the dedicated WhatsApp DP size and status size pages.