How to Compress Large Video Files on Android
You don’t need to compress the video on your Android device to send it when you have Smash: it’s fast, free, and secure!
IN THIS GUIDE, YOU’RE GOING TO READ THE 3 OTHER OPTIONS TO COMPRESS VIDEO FILE ON ANDROID:
1. Panda Video Compress & Convert
2. Compress Video Size Compressor
3. Flixier
Shooting high quality video on an Android device today is easy. Open your camera app of choice, choose your quality, and start recording. With 4K quality video close to standard on leading phones and higher quality available on some devices, the only limit to your video recording is the storage on your device…and maybe sharing that video elsewhere.
Getting that video off your Android phone and onto the device another person can be a challenge when your file is too big to email or drop into a messaging app. For a lot of people faced with sending a large video file on Android, the answer is compression. By compressing the video file, you can reduce the file size to something that can be easily attached to an email or dropped into an MMS without problems. But what is your best option for compression on an Android device? Read on for four great zipping options, starting with one that might surprise you!
Don’t compress Android Video, use Smash instead!
Compression is great for getting a version of your video where it needs to go, but wouldn’t you rather send the actual video file? Instead of a lower resolution, pixelated, optimized for small screen version, why not send the high-quality 4K video that you shot in the first place? With Smash you can send the full-resolution, full-length, high quality video that is on your Android device no matter how large the file is – here’s how.
Download the Smash app for Android
Tap the icon in the center of your screen and select the video you want to send
Wait for the file to upload, then select Share
Either copy the URL or choose another way to share the file (message, email, third-party app)
Smash is free to download, and it is free to transfer a video file of any size. Your files are encrypted end-to-end, transfers are entirely secure, and they are lightning fast thanks to Smash’s investments in infrastructure around the world. Your file is never zipped, never suffers from pixelation, and looks as good on your recipient’s screen as it does on yours.
Three Other Ways to Zip a Video File on Android
If you have your heart set on compressing your video, though, there are three alternatives to Smash you might consider.
1. Panda Video Compress & Convert
The Panda video compression application is a popular (more than 10 million downloads), easy to use, and speedy compression and conversion application for Android. Even on the free tier it allows for simple compression of large video files into smaller files, often small enough to attach to an email and send on its way. Compressing your video is easy and you can even compare the original against the compressed version at the end - here’s how it is done:
Install and open the Panda app
Select a video from your device and tap Next
Select from one of the compression options (low/medium/high resolution, or even ‘fit to email’)
Tap Compress, wait for the compression to finish, and save the new file
Pros: Panda is easy to use, fast to zip video, and offers you the chance to review the final file against the original before you send it. Having an opportunity to ‘fit to email’ can save time and guessing at file sizes.
Cons: No matter what option you choose, your file is going to be at a lower quality and resolution that the video that you shot originally. That 4GB file might be shrunk down to email attachment size, but it isn’t going to look good.
2. Compress Video Size Compressor
Compress Video sets out to live up to its name but it also offers a few features to reduce the size of your video without compressing it. For example, with this app you can do some on the fly editing and trim the video you are sending meaning that you might be able to reduce the file size sufficiently to email or MMS the video without needing to compress it. Still, in most cases, you’ll want to take advantage of Compress Video’s compression functions, and they are pretty easy to use:
Install and open the Compress Video app
Select a video from your device, then choose Compress
Tap your desired file size or enter the size of the file in MB that you hope to generate
Select either Faster Mode (acceptable quality) or Slower Mode (higher quality) compression
Tap OK, then preview your compressed video and compare the size of the original and the new file
Pros: It’s easy to use, fast (if you choose the right option) and offers some hints about good file sizes to make for easy emailing or messaging.
Cons: Reducing a video from something large down to something that can be attached to an email is a one-way street to low-resolution videography. While the preview and comparison features are good, they’ll probably just convince you that zipping your video was a bad idea.
3. Flixier
Flixier is an online video editing option that Android users can leverage to compress their large video files. It’s not available as an app for your Android device but can be accessed through any web browser. This will save space on your device, and you’ll save battery life, too, as all the processing will be done on the Flixier servers. It’s easy to do and you can leverage Flixier’s intuitive UI to rapidly edit, compress, and export/publish your video. Here’s the workflow:
Log in to your workspace and upload your video
Once uploaded, select your video from the library and choose Compress Video
Use the on-screen slider to choose your file size – left for smaller, right for larger
Click Export, wait for the render to finish, and then download the video for sharing
Pros: It’s powerful, fully featured, and makes compression simple. You can choose the CODEC and you can make other edits beyond compression (trimming, cutting) to make files even smaller.
Cons: You are going to have a lower resolution video no matter what and – let’s face it – if you are uploading a video to someone’s server, wouldn’t you rather not zip it and just share that video directly? That’s a job that Smash is built for even if Flixier is not.
The Best Way to Compress a Large Video File on Android
If you want to share a copy of your large video file or transfer that video to another device, compressing it is going to impact the resolution. The best way to zip a large video file on Android then is not to zip it. Instead, use the Smash Android app to share directly from your handheld Android device to the world. It’s fast, secure, easy, and unlike the other options, it never messes with the quality and resolution of your video. Instead of a low-quality, grainy, pixelated, or tiny film arriving on someone else’s screen, they can access the full-resolution, high-quality, HD, 4K or 8K film you shot in all its glory.
Smash is available worldwide for free, no matter the size of the file that you want to send. It’s fully encrypted, secure end-to-end, fast, and even offers video previews so your recipient can be sure of what they are going to be downloading on the other end. Unlike Panda or Compress Video, you don’t have to mess with the resolution of your video, and unlike Flixier you don’t need to go through a process of uploading, selecting, editing, compressing, and downloading. Instead, you just tap, upload, and share – nothing could be simpler, and, for fans of high-quality video, nothing preserves the hard work you put into creating it.
Need To Compress Large Video Files
on Android?
Use Smash, it’s no file size limits, simple, fast, secure and free.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Yes! If you want to upgrade your Smash experience you can, and a lot of content creators, media professionals, and leading production teams around the world have done so. But sending a file of any size for free will always remain a part of the Smash experience – try it for yourself: if you can upload it, you can send it for free.
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Smash has native apps for Android, iOS, and Mac, and of course you can use the web portal via any browser. It’s free, fast, and secure.
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You’ll save some space in your smartphone’s memory so you can shoot some more 4K video – but do you really want to reduce the quality of the video you’ve already shot to fit in better quality video in the future. If space is an issue, invest in cloud storage instead of dragging your existing files into low-resolution hell.
