VCompress

A portable Electron app that compresses any video down to a target file size in MB — built primarily for sending clips in Discord, where the free tier caps uploads around 10-20 MB. You drop a video, tell it how big the result should be, and it figures out the bitrate needed to land there, then re-encodes with bundled FFmpeg.

What it does

• Compresses video to an exact target size, not just a quality level
• GPU encode via NVENC or CPU 2-pass encode, three codecs each
• Clips a segment with a timeline before compressing
• Picks audio tracks, removes or keeps original sound, exports audio-only
• Shows detailed logs and a final size report

Interface tour

Compress tab

Drop a video on the card or click to browse. You get one card with all the quick settings:

• Size — target output in megabytes.
• Resolution — output resolution, Keep Original keeps source size.
• FPS — output frame rate, or tick Match Source FPS in Settings to pull it from the loaded file.
• Audio — Remove strips sound, Audio Only exports MP3, or pick a bitrate 96–320 kbps.
• Compress — starts the job; shows progress and elapsed time while running.
• Save Location — where the result lands, plus Show in folder after finish.

Clip tab

Trim a segment before rendering. You can scrub the timeline, drag the range, and:

• Play / Pause and frame-step buttons under the player
• Zoom badge — current zoom level; scroll the mouse wheel over the timeline to zoom in/out
• Ctrl + scroll wheel — step frame-by-frame without moving the cursor
• Trim left / Trim right — snap the selection to the playhead
• Compress on the toolbar renders only the selected range

Settings tab

Fine-grained encoding options for the current run. These are applied to the next compression you start, not as app defaults:

• Encoding Device — GPU uses your graphics card for speed, CPU is slower but works everywhere. CPU also hits the target size more precisely — its 2-pass encode analyses the video first, then encodes with a tighter bitrate budget than the single-pass GPU path.
• Video Codec — H.264 for maximum compatibility, H.265 saves more size, AV1 gives the best quality per megabyte but encodes slower and needs a modern player (AV1 hardware encoding requires RTX 40-series+).
• Quality Bias — Smaller Size, Balanced or Better Quality: how much to trade encode time vs picture quality at the same target size.
• Audio Mode — Compress re-encodes sound to your chosen bitrate, Keep Original passes it through untouched.
• Match Source FPS — read FPS from the loaded video instead of typing it.
• Padding — pads the file with zero bytes to hit exactly the target size
• Size Tolerance MB — acceptable -/+ range around the target; leave Any to accept whatever the encoder produces.

Defaults tab

Startup defaults for new files. Changes here are saved to compressor_settings.json and used the next time the app opens — while Settings applies only to the current run.

Audio tab

Pick which source audio tracks go into the output. Useful for files with multiple language or comment tracks — uncheck what you don't need.

Logs tab

Everything the encoder says: detected duration, bitrate, retries, final size and full FFmpeg output. Copy Logs copies it for bug reports.

Build & run

Two ways to use it:

From source — needs Node.js:

setup.bat    :: installs Node.js (if missing) and deps
run.bat      :: visible console
run_hidden.vbs :: no console window

Portable build — already compiled VCompress.exe in VCompress-Portable, just drop a ffmpeg.exe next to it (or it ships one under resources/).

Requirements

• Windows 10/11
• Node.js (setup.bat installs it via winget if missing)
• FFmpeg binary — put ffmpeg.exe into ffmpeg/bin/ for source, or into resources/ffmpeg/ for the portable build. Static Windows builds are available on gyan.dev or gpl/ffmpeg.org mirrors.

Notes

• For Discord's ~20 MB limit, pick Size = 20 and Audio = 96 kbps — the app handles the bitrate math and retries until it fits the size tolerance.
• AV1 needs a recent GPU (or libsvtav1 on CPU) — H.265 is a safer pick if you're not sure.
• Output never exceeds your target size: if the first encode lands over the limit, the app recalculates bitrate and re-encodes automatically.