Compress audio
Shrink audio for podcasts and uploads with visible voice/music/maximum tradeoffs.
Runs locally in your browser. Enable JavaScript to use the interactive tool. The practical details remain available below.
What Compress audio actually does
Choosing a bitrate is a trade, and every tool that offers the trade makes it invisible: a smaller file arrives and the question of what it cost goes unanswered. This page reports the new size as a percentage of the original and keeps the untouched recording on the same transport as the re-encoded one, so the bitrate is chosen by listening to both rather than by reputation.
How to use it
- Choose an audio file. The waveform is drawn locally.
- Pick a target profile for voice, music or maximum reduction, or set the bitrate directly.
- Run, then read the size change and compare the two versions.
Useful for
- Getting a podcast episode under an upload limit without guessing at the bitrate.
- Reducing a set of recordings for archiving where some loss is acceptable.
- Hearing where a particular recording starts to fall apart as the bitrate drops.
Limits worth knowing
- Lossy re-encoding is not reversible, and re-encoding an already lossy file loses more.
- Speech tolerates far lower bitrates than music; one profile does not suit both.
- A file that is already small may grow, since the encoder targets a bitrate rather than a size.
Questions people ask
Is the file uploaded?
No. Everything runs in this tab.
Why did my file get bigger?
The chosen bitrate is higher than the source's. Lower it, or keep the original.
How low can I go?
Compare at each step. Spoken word usually survives much lower settings than music, and the point where it stops working depends on the recording.