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How to Resize a Photo on iPhone

The Preview app on iPhone has an Adjust Size option most people never find. Here is how to use it, how to cut the file size too, and when Safari is quicker.

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To resize a photo on iPhone, open it in the Preview app, tap the More button, tap Adjust Size, choose your options, and tap Done. Apple documents this in its iPhone User Guide for iOS 26 and iOS 27. If you'd rather type an exact width in pixels and see the result before saving, Resize Image does it in Safari, and nothing is uploaded.

How to resize a photo in the Preview app

These steps come from Apple's page Edit an image in Preview on iPhone:

  1. Open the Preview app.
  2. Open the image from Recents, Shared, or Browse in Preview.
  3. Tap the More button, then tap Adjust Size.
  4. Choose the size options you want, then tap Done.

Changed your mind? Tap the More button again, then Undo. The same More menu also rotates, flips, and removes backgrounds, which is why the resize option is easy to miss.

How to make the file smaller, not just the picture

A smaller width and height usually means a smaller file, but an upload form with a hard limit cares about bytes. Preview has a second control for that, on Apple's page Export or compress PDFs and images in Preview on iPhone:

  1. With the image open in Preview, tap the Actions Menu button next to the file name, then tap Export.
  2. Pick JPEG as the format.
  3. Drag the Size slider left for a smaller file, or right for higher quality.
  4. Tap Done, choose where to save it, rename it if you like, and tap Save.
Two ways to make a photo smaller on iPhone Two side-by-side boxes. The left box, Adjust Size, changes the width and height in pixels, which is what a size requirement such as 1080 pixels wide asks for. The right box, Export as JPEG with the Size slider, trades quality for a smaller file, which is what a file-size limit asks for. Adjust Size Changes width x height For "must be 1080 px wide" Export as JPEG + Size slider Trades quality for bytes For "must be under 2 MB"

How to resize an image on iPhone in Safari

Apple's Adjust Size steps cover one open image. When you need a specific pixel width, or a dozen photos at the same size, a browser tool is quicker.

  1. Open Resize Image in Safari and tap the drop area to choose one photo or up to 50.
  2. Type a width in pixels. With "Lock aspect ratio" ticked, which is the default, the height fills itself in so the photo isn't stretched.
  3. Check the "New size" line. It shows the output width and height next to the original ones, before anything is saved.
  4. Run the resize and download. Two or more photos come back together in one zip.

The resize runs inside Safari on your phone. Your photos are never sent to a server.

Know what you're getting back: the resized image is a PNG, but the download keeps the name of the file you picked, so a photo picked as IMG_1234.JPG comes back under that name with PNG data inside. A PNG of a photo is often heavier than the JPG you started with. If a form needs a small JPG, Preview's Adjust Size followed by a JPEG export is the better route.

To shrink a batch by a share of its size instead of a pixel count, Resize by Percentage starts at 50% and scales width and height together, each photo relative to its own size.

Which size should you pick?

Go by where the photo is headed, and avoid enlarging: a small picture made bigger only gets softer. How to resize an image covers sensible sizes for the web, email, and forms, and resizing many images at once covers batches. On a Mac, resizing with Preview or Photos works differently, and if your photo came out sideways, see rotating a photo on iPhone.

FAQ

Can I resize several photos at once on iPhone?
Apple's Adjust Size steps cover one open image at a time. Resize Image takes up to 50 photos and resizes them all to the same width in one run.

How do I resize a photo on iPhone without stretching it?
In Resize Image, leave "Lock aspect ratio" ticked and type only the width; the height follows. Untick it only when a template demands an exact width and height, and accept that the photo will be stretched to fit.

Does Resize Image change my original photo?
No. It makes a new file for you to download and leaves the photo you picked as it was.

Try it yourself

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Resize Image by Percentage Online for Free

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