Increase JPG File Size to 20KB Free
To increase a JPG image to 20KB, upload it to the tool below, confirm the 20KB target, and download the result. The padding is written into metadata the decoder ignores, so the file is byte-exact and visually unchanged. It runs in your browser — nothing is sent anywhere.
Increase JPG or JPEG file size
Runs entirely in this browser tab. Your file is never uploaded.
Drag a JPG or JPEG file here, or
Nothing is uploaded when you pick a file.
How it works
- 1
Choose your JPG file
Drag a file onto the tool above or click to browse. It accepts .jpg and .jpeg files, and the file is read directly by your browser rather than sent anywhere.
- 2
Confirm the 20KB target
The target is already set to 20KB on this page. You can change it to any other figure in KB or MB if the form you are filling in wants something different.
- 3
Choose how the size is added
The default pads the file with extra COM comment segments, a part of the JPG specification that every decoder skips, so the image is untouched. Switch to "increase resolution" if you want more pixels as well as more bytes.
- 4
Download the result
Press the button and your browser saves the new file, at exactly 20KB. Nothing was uploaded, so there is nothing stored anywhere for you to delete afterwards.
When you would need a bigger file
The form is not judging your image — it is judging its byte count, against a floor of 20KB. That rule was written to stop people uploading unreadable 5KB scans, and it has no way of telling those apart from a clean scan that simply compressed well.
Rescanning at a higher DPI would also clear the threshold, and if your scan really is hard to read that is the better fix. If it is fine and only the number is wrong, padding it is the honest shortcut: the bytes go into extra COM comment segments, a part of the JPG specification that every decoder skips, and the person who opens the file sees exactly what you scanned.
What a 20KB file usually is
20KB is the most common floor for passport-style photographs on government and examination portals, usually stated as a band of 20KB to 50KB alongside pixel dimensions such as 200×230. A phone photo cropped to that size can easily land at 12KB, which fails the check despite looking perfectly sharp.
A 20KB JPG is around 300×400 pixels at moderate compression — enough for a face to be clearly identifiable on screen, which is all the requirement is really testing for.
Frequently asked questions
Will this reduce my image’s quality?
No, and that is the point of doing it this way. Adding bytes to extra COM comment segments, a part of the JPG specification that every decoder skips changes the file’s size without touching the part of it that describes the picture, so there is no mechanism by which the quality could drop.
Is my file uploaded to a server?
No. The entire process runs in your browser using the File and Canvas APIs. Your file is read from your own disk, changed in memory and handed straight back to you. You can confirm it by opening your browser’s Network tab while you use the tool — there is no upload request, because there is no upload endpoint.
What file formats are supported?
This page is set up for JPG images. The tool also handles PDFs and the other image format — drop any supported file in and it will detect the type from the file itself rather than the extension.
Why would I need to increase file size instead of decrease it?
It is rarely a want, usually a requirement. A portal has refused the file for being below 20KB, the scan itself is fine, and rescanning it at a higher DPI means finding the document and the scanner again. Padding gets the number where it needs to be in seconds.
Is this free to use?
Yes — free, with no account, no watermark, no email address and no limit on how many files you run through it. Because the work happens on your own device rather than on a server, there are no processing costs to pass on.