You found something cool on the Internet and wanted to tell your friends about it through Discord. As soon as you chose the files to send, Discord started compressing them, and it hasn’t stuck since.
That just makes me mad.
So, I did some research and came up with my own answer.
Why doesn’t Discord shrink files?
Discord compresses files that are bigger than a certain size to save space on its server. Compressing larger images and videos takes time. So, Discord gets stuck compressing the larger file because it can’t do anything else.
Read the whole article if you want to figure out why Discord won’t compress files.
Why Does Discord Compress Files?
There are more than 150 million users and almost 7 million servers on Discord. Discord limits the size of documents that can be shared without being compressed to 8MB so that it can host the servers and user files. So, for these files to fit on Discord’s server, files over 8MB are compressed to save space.
Discord is used by millions of people every day as a way to talk to each other, and its servers are full of a lot of pictures and files.
The Discord server is always hosting these files, which takes up a lot of space and resources. For Discord to be able to compress user files, they have to be smaller than their actual size.
The Discord app will check the size of every file you share with friends or servers. If they are bigger than 8MB, Discord will ask if you want to compress them or use the Nitro sharing service.
Since Nitro is a service that costs money, not everyone wants to use it. So, you have to compress the files. But don’t worry, the Discord app has a built-in compression service that will help you do it.
Just click the “Compress files” button, and it will automatically be compressed and uploaded. But Discord sometimes gets stuck on the “Compressing files” dialogue, which I’ll talk about in a moment.
How to Fix Discord for NOT Compressing Files
As I’ve said, the Discord app could get stuck on compressing files for a number of reasons. Now, I’ll tell you how to deal with these problems.
Here are the steps to take if Discord isn’t compressing files:
1. Use a Reliable Internet Connection
For the Discord app to work, you need a stable internet connection.
Contact the person in charge of your network and ask for help to fix the connection if it only happens when you use Discord. Unstable internet connection sometimes costs in RTC Connecting problems too.
Look for troubleshoots on your router. If you have to, you can restart the router and see if the problem still happens.
2. Update the Discord app
Check the version of the Discord app on your device. If the app is out of date, you can update it through the app.
Follow the steps below to update the Discord app up to date:
- Open Discord app.
- Press the Ctrl and R keys on your keyboard to make the interface of Discord look new.
- If the “Download update” message comes up, click “Yes.”
- Close the Discord app and open it again to get the updates.
- You can also update it by downloading the latest version of the Discord app from the official website, if you’re interested.
3. Check for media files that are broken or encrypted.
Check to see if the file you want to share is less than 8MB or is not encrypted. If your internal storage is encrypted and you want to share files from it, you’ll run into the “forever compressing” problem.
So, if the file is encrypted, you’ll need to decrypt it before you can share it.
Or, once the file is decrypted, you can use any third-party compression tool to shrink it to less than 8MB.
Avoid compressing big files with the app’s built-in compressor. It’s not a compression tool, so throwing anything at it will cause issues.
4. Use other platforms for sharing
If you use a different way to share files, you can avoid the Discord app not permanently compressing files.
Because of a reason, the Discord app won’t let you share files larger than 8MB.
But you can store document files on other websites, such as Google Drive, Mega, and MediaFire.
And Imgur, Google Photos, or Dropbox to store your images, pictures, and memes, and then share the link to that file with your friends through the Discord app.
These websites have a lot of potential to help people get around the issues with file sharing limits. Just share it on one of these websites and send the link to whoever you want.
5. Try Reuploading The Files
Most of the time, uploading a file to Discord is a quick process, especially if you have a fast internet connection.
Since Discord has a relatively low file size limit (especially if you don’t have a Discord Nitro subscription), compressing the files should be a fairly quick process.
So, if it’s been more than 30 seconds and Discord still says it’s compressing, you might want to reupload the file and try again.
Most of the time, this will solve the issue.
But if you’ve tried to reupload it more than once and Discord is still stuck compressing the files, it could mean that there’s something wrong with the file itself.
So, you might want to try some of the other fixes we’ll talk about below.
6. Change The File Format
If Discord can’t compress just one file, it’s usually because there’s something wrong with the file, not with your internet connection or the Discord client.
So, converting the file to a different format could be one thing that helps.
For example, converting a.JPG file to a.PNG file or a.AVI file to a.MP4 file.
Most of the time, you can do this online with free software like CloudConvert, which supports more than 200 different file formats at the moment. The whole process only takes a few seconds, which is great!
All you have to do is upload your file and choose the new format that you want to convert it to. Then you can get the new file it makes.
Just upload this new file to Discord, and it should now work perfectly.
If you are using a PC and have a lot of files to convert, you should use software like Caesium instead because it is much faster.
7. Screenshot The Photo, Then Resend It
You can also take a screenshot if you don’t want to bother converting your photos.
Taking a screenshot of the photo you want to send makes a new file, even if it looks the same. If certain pictures are giving you trouble, this can help.
The only bad thing about this is that the photos will usually have a lower resolution, which makes them less clear on very large screens.
Most people don’t really need to worry about this. The lower resolution that screenshotting gives you shouldn’t be a problem unless you’re sharing photos you took with a real camera and the people who look at them will actually use the full resolution.
Most of the time, taking a screenshot will also make the file smaller, which could mean you don’t need to compress it at all. More to come on that!
8. Avoid Uploading From Your ‘Recents’ Folder (iPhone Pictures Only)
This one is a little odd.
Some iPhone users have specifically said that the files don’t compress when they’re uploaded from the “Recents” folder on their iPhones.
However, pictures will suddenly start uploading and compressing again if they instead choose to upload the photo from their ‘All Photos’ folder instead.
So, if you are using an iPhone and files get stuck compressing, try not uploading from your Recents folder to see if that fixes the issue.
9. Compress The Files Yourself
Only files bigger than 8 megabytes can be compressed by Discord.
So, you can stop the process from starting entirely by compressing large files yourself before sending them.
This can be done in a few different ways.
First, you can use a tool like Compress2Go that you can find online. Just upload the file and follow the instructions on the screen to compress it.
Second, you can use software like Caesium to reduce the file size of photos and Handbrake to reduce the file size of videos.
Lastly, you can add multiple files to an archive and compress them at the same process by using archiving software like WinRAR or 7-Zip.
The smaller the size of the file, the faster it will upload.
9. Miscellaneous Fixes
If nothing you’ve tried so far has worked, there are a few quick ways to solve common Discord problems.
We suggest you try these, as they will solve most bugs with uploading and compressing files on Discord:
Make sure you have the latest version of the app or desktop client.
If you are using a VPN, turn it off.
Change from mobile data to Wi-Fi if using a cell phone, or vice versa.
Remove the app or client and then put it back on.
Restart your computer or mobile phone.
Use a service like Downdetector to check for outages and bugs or other Discord Outages sites.
10. Upload The Files Somewhere Else
If you’ve tried everything in this article and nothing has worked, your last option is to upload the files somewhere else.
There are many free cloud storage options, and once you set up an account, it’s usually pretty quick to upload files to them.
Dropbox or Google Drive are the two services I like.
When you upload your files to one of these two sites, you can get a link to share.
This way, when you copy it into your Discord server or a DM to someone, the link preview will automatically load and viewing the file will be easy.
With any luck, the bug that makes it impossible to compress files will be fixed in the next Discord update.
Why is Discord stuck compressing files?
Images from iPhones are of this type; they can’t be stopped from being compressed. Also, if Discord doesn’t support the file format, it can keep showing a dialogue box while the compression service keeps trying to compress it.
As I’ve told you before, the Discord app can only convert files that are more than 8MB in size. It reduces the size of the files, which you can’t see.
Also, when you share files in Discord, it deletes the metadata about them. Metadata can also make the file size of an image larger. It has information about the time, date, and place where it was made.
As a safety measure for its users, it gets rid of metadata. The people in charge of many sketchy Discord servers keep an eye out for problems.
You can also choose who can see the files you share, depending on what you need.
Here are the reasons Discord gets stuck on compressing:
Unstable Internet Connection
Most of the issue, you get stuck on a connecting screen because your internet connection isn’t unstable.
Discord’s own algorithm is used to compress files. As long as it is compressing, it needs to be connected to its servers through the internet. If the compression stops because of an unstable connection, it gets stuck on the “compressing” screen.
If you use public Wi-Fi, you’ll probably run into this issue.
Discord is an old app.
If you use an outdated version of the Discord app, you may have to spend forever compressing files.
A version that is too old doesn’t support the latest compression algorithm. Because of this, you might get stuck on the “Compressing files” dialogue box for a long time.
Media Files That Are Corrupted or Encrypted
Check to see if the files you want to share through the Discord app are corrupted.
Issues with compressing forever can sometimes be caused by media files that are broken or corrupted. This issue also happens when the media file is written in a new format or has encryption that prevents compression.
These are probably why the Discord app gets stuck or stops compressing files.
Frequently Asked Question
Does Discord compress Images?
All files that are bigger than 8 MB are compressed by Discord. It uses Discord’s own file-compressing algorithm to save space and fit all user data on its servers. This is done by compressing the metadata and very small visual changes.
What is Discord’s file limit?
The largest file you can upload to Discord is 8MB. But if you sign up for Nitro, which is Discord’s official file-sharing service, you can upload files up to 50MB in size.
