shycut

Compress a video to send by email

You rarely know which mail service the other side uses. This page aims under the lowest of the big ones, so your video goes as an attachment wherever it is sent.

Drop your video here

Choose your video

MP4, MOV, WebM or MKV. It opens right here, on your device.

  • Nothing uploaded
  • No sign-up
  • No watermark

The limit, from the source

Gmail
25 MB: Personal Gmail accounts. Gmail takes the attachment out and puts a Google Drive link in the email instead.
Outlook.com
25 MB: Outlook.com accounts. Outlook.com points you to sharing it from OneDrive, which takes files up to 2 GB.
What Shycut aims at
20 MB, under every limit above, so the file goes through wherever it is sent.

What fits in 20 MB

PictureAt full qualityLongest that fits
1080p26 s58 s
720p58 s2 min 4 s
540p1 min 40 s3 min 24 s
480p2 min 4 s4 min 21 s
360p3 min 24 s6 min 52 s

Shycut’s own sums for a 16:9 video at 30 frames a second with sound, at Balanced quality. “Full quality” keeps the bitrate Balanced would use anyway; past “longest that fits”, Shycut makes the picture smaller instead of letting it break up. An upright video fits the same.

Your video, by length

LengthComes out as
30 s1080p, 4,992 kbps for the picture
1 min720p, 2,432 kbps for the picture
3 min540p, 725 kbps for the picture
10 minToo long: up to 6 min 52 s fits

For a 1080p video at 30 frames a second with sound. The save window does the same sum for your own video before anything is made.

One file for every inbox

Each service counts its own limit; the ones above are read from their help pages. A file under the lowest of them is accepted by all, whichever one you send from.

Over a limit, mail services turn the file into a cloud link. Under it, the video travels in the email and stays there, which is easier for anyone who isn’t comfortable with shared drives.

How it works

  1. Open your video

    Press the button and drop the file, or pick it from your files. It opens in this browser tab; nothing is uploaded, so the original can be as large as you like.

  2. 20 MB is already set

    The save window opens set to an MP4 under that size. Shycut works out the bitrate from your video’s length and shows what it will do before you save.

  3. Save

    If the video can’t fit at its own size, the picture steps down (1080p, 720p…) and the window says so. If nothing fits, it tells you how long a clip does, so you can trim first.

Where these facts come from

Questions

Why not just aim at 25 MB?

Because not every limit is 25 MB, and the email around the file takes a little room too. Aiming lower means one file works for all of them.

Does it work from a phone?

Yes. Compress the video in your phone’s browser, then attach the downloaded file in your mail app.

Is anything sent while compressing?

No. The video is read and written on your device; you send the finished file yourself.

Your video stays with you.

Open Shycut, drop the video in and export. Free, with no account, and your video never leaves your device.

Choose your video

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