Compression

Node Browser

Smart image compression in one call. Pick a target format and quality — imgcraft handles the encoding.

compress

.compress(options?: CompressOptions): Pipeline

.compress(options?: CompressOptions): Pipeline

Compress the image to an optimised format. Defaults to WebP at quality 80 if no options are given. The output format is automatically applied at the end of the pipeline after all other transforms.

Option	Type	Default	Description
`format`	`'jpeg' \| 'png' \| 'webp' \| 'avif'`	`'webp'`	Output format.
`quality`	`number`	`80`	Quality 1–100. Applies to JPEG, PNG, WebP, AVIF.
`effort`	`number`	format default	Compression effort. WebP: 0–6. AVIF: 0–9. Higher = smaller file, slower encode.

// Default — WebP at 80% quality
await img('photo.jpg').compress().toBuffer()

// Explicit quality
await img('photo.jpg').compress({ quality: 85 }).toBuffer()

// AVIF for maximum compression
await img('photo.jpg').compress({ format: 'avif', quality: 60 }).toBuffer()

// WebP with maximum effort (slowest encode, smallest file)
await img('photo.jpg').compress({ format: 'webp', quality: 80, effort: 6 }).toBuffer()

// Default — WebP at 80% quality
await img('photo.jpg').compress().toBuffer()

// Explicit quality
await img('photo.jpg').compress({ quality: 85 }).toBuffer()

// AVIF for maximum compression
await img('photo.jpg').compress({ format: 'avif', quality: 60 }).toBuffer()

// WebP with maximum effort (slowest encode, smallest file)
await img('photo.jpg').compress({ format: 'webp', quality: 80, effort: 6 }).toBuffer()

Difference from .webp() / .format()

.compress() is the high-level method — it chooses sensible defaults and makes the intent clear. The lower-level .webp(), .avif(), .jpeg(), and .format() methods offer more per-format options (MozJPEG, progressive, lossless, compressionLevel). Use those when you need fine-grained control; use .compress() for the common case.

Method	Use when
`.compress({ format: 'webp' })`	You want the common path with a readable API
`.webp({ lossless: true })`	You need lossless WebP
`.jpeg({ progressive: true, mozjpeg: true })`	You need progressive or MozJPEG
`.avif({ effort: 9 })`	You're optimising static assets and can afford slow encoding

Browser (WASM)

.compress() is fully supported in the browser WASM engine. The effort option is silently ignored (the WASM encoder doesn't expose effort control), but format and quality work as expected.

Batch

Works identically in batch pipelines:

import { batch } from 'imgcraft'

await batch(['a.jpg', 'b.jpg', 'c.jpg'])
  .resize(1200)
  .compress({ format: 'webp', quality: 85 })
  .toDir('./output')

import { batch } from 'imgcraft'

await batch(['a.jpg', 'b.jpg', 'c.jpg'])
  .resize(1200)
  .compress({ format: 'webp', quality: 85 })
  .toDir('./output')

Examples

// Thumbnail pipeline
await img('hero.jpg')
  .resize(800, 450, { fit: 'cover' })
  .compress({ quality: 85 })
  .toBuffer()

// Maximum compression for static site
await img('photo.jpg')
  .compress({ format: 'avif', quality: 55, effort: 9 })
  .toFile('photo.avif')

// Browser — compress a user upload
const result = await img(file)
  .resize(1200)
  .compress({ format: 'webp', quality: 80 })
  .toDataURL()

// Thumbnail pipeline
await img('hero.jpg')
  .resize(800, 450, { fit: 'cover' })
  .compress({ quality: 85 })
  .toBuffer()

// Maximum compression for static site
await img('photo.jpg')
  .compress({ format: 'avif', quality: 55, effort: 9 })
  .toFile('photo.avif')

// Browser — compress a user upload
const result = await img(file)
  .resize(1200)
  .compress({ format: 'webp', quality: 80 })
  .toDataURL()

WebP at quality 80 is the recommended default for most web images. It typically achieves 25–35% smaller files than JPEG at equivalent visual quality with near-instant encode times.