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JPEG Quality Filter

WordPress recompresses your images at 82% — change it

Runs in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.

Quality

What it does to a flat graphic

A hard edge on a flat colour is the worst case for JPEG. Drag the slider and watch the halo appear around the shapes. This is rendered live in your browser at the exact quality you picked.

Original
Compressed preview
At quality 82 · —
Scope
functions.php

Only affects images uploaded AFTER the filter is active. Existing images keep the quality they were encoded at until you regenerate them. And note the preview above is your browser's JPEG encoder, not your server's — the artefacts are representative, the byte counts are not.

About the JPEG Quality Filter

Every JPEG you upload is re-encoded at quality 82 by default. That is fine for photos and visibly bad for screenshots and flat graphics. This generates the filter to change it, with a live preview of what each quality level costs.

Related

Other tools you might need

Disable -scaled Images

Stop WordPress silently shrinking your big uploads

FAQ

Questions

What JPEG quality does WordPress use by default?

82. Every JPEG you upload is re-encoded at that quality, and so is every derivative size WordPress generates from it. It is a reasonable default for photographs and a visibly poor one for screenshots, logos and flat graphics — those have hard edges and no photographic noise to hide compression artefacts in.

Should I set JPEG quality to 100?

No. Above roughly 92 you are buying file size rather than visible quality, and 100 can triple the file for a difference nobody will notice. If your images are screenshots or UI graphics, 88–92 is the sensible range.

Does changing this fix images I already uploaded?

No. The filter applies to images processed after it is active. Existing images keep the quality they were encoded at until you re-upload them or regenerate thumbnails with a plugin or 'wp media regenerate'.