Reference · Updated July 2026
Video upload size limits for every platform
How big a video can you actually send? Every limit below is checked against the platform's official documentation, with the date we last verified it. When your file is over the limit, each row links to a free tool that compresses it to fit — in your browser, without uploading it anywhere.
Platforms change these numbers quietly and often — Discord has moved its free limit twice in three years, WhatsApp jumped from 16 MB to 2 GB — so most articles you'll find are out of date. This page exists to be the current answer. If you spot a limit that's changed, tell us and we'll fix it within days.
Messaging & chat apps
| App | Max video / file size | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Discord | 10 MB free · 50 MB Nitro Basic · 500 MB Nitro | Lowered from 25 MB in September 2024 — most guides still show the old number. Over it? Compress to 10 MB. |
| 2 GB per file | The 2 GB limit applies when you send the video as a document. Sent from the gallery, it gets recompressed hard and looks worse — compress it yourself first to control the quality. | |
| Telegram | 2 GB free · 4 GB Premium | The most generous mainstream chat app; unchanged since 2022. |
| Signal | 100 MB per attachment | Not officially documented; confirmed in Signal's open-source issue tracker. Long videos can fail transcoding even under the cap — compress to well under 100 MB. |
| iMessage | ~100 MB (unofficial) | Apple publishes no number; ~100 MB is the practical iMessage-to-iMessage ceiling. If the recipient isn't on iMessage it falls back to MMS at roughly 1–3.5 MB. |
| Facebook Messenger | 100 MB per file | Raised from 25 MB in April 2024. |
Email providers
| Provider | Attachment limit | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Gmail | 25 MB | Encoding overhead means only a ~18 MB file reliably fits — compress to 25 MB or set 18 MB in the full compressor. Larger sends switch to a Google Drive link automatically. |
| Outlook.com / Microsoft 365 | 25 MB web · 20 MB desktop app | Microsoft 365 work accounts default to 35 MB (raised from 25 MB in 2026). Attaching from OneDrive allows up to 2 GB as a link. |
| Yahoo Mail | 25 MB | Same effective ~18 MB ceiling as Gmail. |
| iCloud Mail | 20 MB | Mail Drop hands off attachments up to 5 GB as a 30-day download link. |
| Proton Mail | 25 MB | Per message, across all attachments (up to 100 files); receiving caps at 50 MB. |
Social media platforms
| Platform | Max size | Max duration | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| YouTube | 256 GB | 12 h | Whichever is smaller. Unverified accounts are capped at 15 minutes. |
| X (Twitter) | 512 MB free · 16 GB Premium | 2:20 free · 4 h Premium | Premium videos over 2 hours drop to 720p. Android app uploads cap at 10 minutes even with Premium. |
| Instagram (Reels) | ~4 GB (unofficial) | 20 min | Feed videos are Reels now. Limit rose from 3 to 20 minutes during 2025, but Reels over 3 minutes get less recommendation reach. Stories: 60-second segments. |
| TikTok | ~72 MB Android · ~288 MB iOS · ~10 GB web (unofficial) | 60 min | Upload from tiktok.com to bypass the tight app limits. 60-minute uploads are still rolling out account by account. |
| 10 GB | 240 min | Via Meta Business tools; the classic composer historically capped at 4 GB. Stories: 120 seconds. | |
| 5 GB | 15 min | Native feed video. Minimum 3 seconds. | |
| 1 GB | 15 min · 30 min Premium | MP4 or MOV. Videos in comments cap at 3 minutes. | |
| Snapchat | ~1 GB (unofficial) | 60 s | Story uploads from the web: 5–60 seconds, 9:16. Snapchat publishes no file-size figure. |
| Vimeo | 1 GB lifetime (free) | — | Free accounts created since June 2024 get 1 GB of total storage, ever — it doesn't reset. Compressing before upload stretches it a long way. |
Work, school & file transfer
| Service | Max file size | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Slack | 1 GB | All plans. On the free plan, files older than a year are deleted. |
| Microsoft Teams | 250 GB | For files shared via SharePoint/OneDrive storage; Microsoft's docs list chat attachments at 100 MB. |
| Google Drive | 5 TB | Per file, bounded by your storage quota and a 750 GB/day upload cap. Google Classroom attachments inherit these limits. |
| Canvas LMS | 5 GB | Per file, but the default course storage quota is only 500 MB and many schools cap submissions lower — compressing a screen recording is often the only way in. |
| WeTransfer | 3 GB free | And max 10 transfers per rolling 30 days since the 2024 plan change; links expire in 3 days. |
Over the limit? Fix it without uploading your video
Everything on this site runs locally in your browser — your video never leaves your device. Pick the preset that matches your platform: compress to 10 MB for Discord, compress to 25 MB for Gmail and Outlook attachments, compress for WhatsApp, or set any custom target in the full compressor. There's no upload wait, no queue, no account, and no watermark. Not sure a clip will fit at a decent quality? The bitrate calculator tells you the resolution a given size supports before you compress.
A note on email: attachments are encoded with roughly 33% overhead, so a "25 MB limit" fits only about an 18 MB file. The rows above list the official numbers; for email, compress to two-thirds of the stated limit to be safe.
Frequently asked questions
Why does my file bounce even though it's under the limit?
Three usual causes: email attachment encoding adds ~33% overhead (a 20 MB file becomes ~27 MB on the wire), some platforms count metadata or enforce the limit before compression finishes on their side, and a few check duration or resolution as well as size. Compressing 10–15% under the stated limit avoids all three — the compressor's presets already do this.
How do I send a video that's way over every limit?
Compression can shrink a video a lot — often 5–10× — but if you need original quality, use a link instead of an attachment: upload to Google Drive, iCloud or Dropbox and share the link. For anything under a few hundred MB, compressing it to fit is usually faster than uploading it anywhere.
Do these limits apply to the video before or after the platform recompresses it?
The limits here apply to the file you upload. Most social platforms (Instagram, TikTok, Facebook) recompress your video again on their servers afterwards — which is also why uploading an already-efficient H.264/H.265 file gives better final quality than uploading a huge file and letting the platform butcher it.
How current is this page?
Each table shows when its rows were last verified against the platform's official documentation. We re-check whenever a platform announces a change and do a full sweep regularly. Spotted something outdated? Report it on GitHub.
What's the fastest way to get under a specific limit?
Use a compressor with a target size rather than a quality slider. VidKit's compress-to-size tool takes the exact MB number, works out the right bitrate for your video's length, and verifies the result lands under the target — locally in your browser, so a 500 MB source doesn't need a 500 MB upload before work even starts.