iMessage compressing videos when sent

Good morning. Last night I went to an event where I was capturing 4K HDR content on my iPhone 13 Pro Max. And I sent a few videos out to some friends. This morning, I found out through one of them that the video was “small and grainy”. And I sent the same video again and they reported the same thing. Btw, this video is over 700 mb in size. I sent here another video that’s around 300 mb in size and it was just fine. I also used Wi-Fi to send the vids (my Wi-Fi’s upload speeds can hit almost 1 GB). Could somebody explain how or why the 700 mb video seems to be getting compressed? Is it because the file size is too big or is it something on her end?

iPhone 13 Pro Max

Posted on Nov 13, 2021 6:33 AM

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4 replies

Nov 14, 2021 8:02 AM in response to Klpeeb

Hello Klpeeb,


Welcome to Apple Support Communities!


It sounds like you sent a video and it was received grainy and small. We'd like to assist with this.


Let's take a look into your settings, and see if there are any settings contributing into this behavior. Please navigate to: Settings > Messages > scroll to the bottom to Low Quality Image Mode. This is typically turned off. If this was on, it may cause this issue.


Take care.



Nov 14, 2021 5:20 PM in response to Klpeeb

How did you send the videos? Did you use iMessage to the other user’s iPhones, or MMS to non-iPhones?


I ask because MMS never uses Wi-Fi, it can only use cellular data. And it can’t send large attachments, so the phone shrinks them to be sent. You would need to email them and use Mail Drop, which uploads the attachment to iCloud, with a link to the recipient to download the images.

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iMessage compressing videos when sent

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