“This video is too big to send” — WhatsApp, on a Mac

The trick most people don't know

Send it as a document, not as a video. In WhatsApp: attach → Document → choose the file. The document limit is 2 GB, and — crucially — WhatsApp does not re-compress documents.

The recipient gets the original file at original quality. They tap to download it rather than seeing an inline preview, which is a small price for the video actually looking like the video.

If it has to go as a video

Then it needs to be under ~16 MB, which means both trimming and compressing.

1. Trim first. Cutting a 3-minute clip to the 40 seconds that matter removes 78% of the size and costs zero quality.
2. Drop the resolution to 720p. On a phone screen — where this will be watched — 720p and 4K look near-identical, and the size falls by roughly 85%.
3. Convert to H.264 if it isn't already. WhatsApp will re-encode anyway, so handing it something already efficient means less damage on the second pass.

QuickTime's Export As → 720p handles steps 2–3 for a single clip for free. Trimming precisely, or doing this to a batch, is where an app pays for itself.

The honest alternative

For anything longer than a couple of minutes, a link beats an attachment every time. Upload to iCloud, Drive or WeTransfer and paste the link into the chat: full quality, no limit, no re-compression, and it doesn't sit in the recipient's phone storage forever.

Common questions

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