Compress a Video for TikTok Without Getting Rejected
TikTok's upload limit depends entirely on how you upload: the Android app caps you at a tight 72MB, the iOS app allows 287.6MB, and the desktop web uploader at tiktok.com jumps all the way to 10GB. Miss the cap on mobile and TikTok simply refuses the file — there's no partial upload or automatic fallback, so knowing which limit applies to you before you export matters.
Why the mobile caps catch people off guard
A single minute of 4K footage from a modern phone can easily run 300MB or more, which blows past the Android limit five times over and still risks the iOS cap on longer clips. Editing apps that export at high bitrates to "preserve quality" make this worse — the file you're trying to post is often far bigger than either mobile limit allows, even though it fits comfortably in the 10GB web cap.
Step-by-step: hit the mobile upload caps
- Open Shrynk and drop in your clip — it runs locally in your browser, so this works the same whether you're on a phone or a laptop.
- Switch to Target file size mode. For Android, set it to around 60MB for a safety margin under the 72MB cap; for iOS, 250MB comfortably clears the 287.6MB limit.
- Download the compressed MP4 and upload it through the TikTok app as usual.
If your clip is long or you want to preserve maximum quality, uploading through the desktop web version at tiktok.com sidesteps the mobile caps entirely, since it accepts files up to 10GB.
What resolution and bitrate to use
TikTok's own recommendation is 1080×1920 at a 9:16 aspect ratio, encoded as H.264 in an MP4 container. Shrynk's "Balanced" preset (CRF 23) is a good default for feed content; switch to "High quality" (CRF 18) only if the file still comfortably fits under your target platform's cap after compressing.
FAQ
Does TikTok recompress my video after I upload it?
Yes, TikTok applies its own compression pass on top of whatever you upload, similar to Instagram — starting from an efficiently encoded file gives its encoder cleaner data to work with, which usually looks sharper after TikTok's own pass.
Why is the Android limit so much lower than iOS?
TikTok sets tighter mobile app limits partly because Android devices vary widely in available memory and network conditions; the desktop web uploader removes this constraint entirely, supporting files up to 10GB.
What resolution should I export at for TikTok?
1080×1920 (9:16) is TikTok's own recommended vertical resolution — uploading a higher resolution just gets downscaled, so there's no quality benefit to going bigger.
Posting to TikTok regularly across a batch of clips? The Shrynk desktop app compresses a whole folder to your target size automatically, for a one-time $9.