A FreeConvert alternative for compressing and converting video
Filezaar compresses and converts video inside the browser tab you already have open — 0 bytes uploaded, so your clip never has to travel anywhere.
Where your video sits for eight hours
FreeConvert publishes exactly what happens to your file, which is more than most services do. Its privacy policy says: "Files uploaded to FreeConvert are automatically and permanently deleted after 8 hours." It also says where they live in the meantime — on Amazon's storage service, in Ireland.
Eight hours is better than eight days, and permanent deletion is the right default. Nobody should read that sentence as carelessness.
But it describes a window rather than an absence. For eight hours there is a copy of your video on infrastructure you don't own, reachable by the account system that created it. There is a delete button, and you can press it yourself. Pressing it is one more thing to remember, and forgetting it doesn't undo the eight hours that already happened.
Video makes this sharper than other formats do. A photo is one frame of your life. A video is usually a few minutes of it, often with sound, sometimes with a room in the background, sometimes with a child talking. The thing people compress is usually the thing they'd least like stored somewhere else.
On Filezaar there is no window, because there is no copy. 0 bytes uploaded: the file is read from your disk, the work happens in the tab, and the result is offered to you as a download. Nothing else is created. When you close the tab, there is nothing anywhere to delete. Our privacy page sets out the detail.
What FreeConvert's own pages say, in their words
Read the source, because it's fairer than any summary:
"Files uploaded to FreeConvert are automatically and permanently deleted after 8 hours."
"We store all user files (including uploaded files, converted files, edited files, images and signature images) on Amazon Web Services (AWS)'s Simple Storage Service (S3), based in Ireland."
"Note that we do not access or view your files."
The free plan runs on a monthly cookie that tracks "how many credits you have used during the 1-month period."
Their video compressor's compression method is labelled "Target a file size (Percentage)", and the help text reads: "Select a target file size as a percentage (0 - 10000%) of the original. Smaller values compress more. For example, a 100Mb file would become 25Mb if you select 25%."
That's an unusually clear set of statements and it deserves credit. The last one is also the one that causes the most frustration, so it gets its own section.
The percentage problem, and the honest answer
You almost never want "40% smaller." You want "under 20 MB," because that's the number Discord gave you, or "under 25 MB," because that's where Gmail stops.
FreeConvert asks for the former. Its video compressor takes a percentage of the original size, so you do the arithmetic yourself: a 340 MB clip that has to fit 20 MB means roughly 6%. Then you run it and find out whether the result came in under or over, because a percentage target is an attempt, not an outcome.
Here is the part where this page should be careful. Filezaar's video compressor doesn't take a target size in megabytes either. There is no box on Filezaar where you type "20" and get a 19.8 MB file back. It works from the quality setting the tool offers, and it shows you the size of the result before you download, so you can see whether you made it. If an exact output size is the thing you need, neither tool on this page will give it to you. What Filezaar removes instead is the waiting: no upload, no queue, no eight-hour window, no account.
Why video is where uploading hurts most
Three reasons, and they compound.
Video is big. A four-minute phone clip is 300–800 MB. On a typical home uplink that's minutes of transfer before any work starts, and minutes back. The conversion itself might take less time than the journey did.
Video hits ceilings first. A free tier that's generous for a PDF is tight for a video. Most upload converters cap file size because storage and bandwidth are the cost, and video is where you meet that cap.
Video is slow to redo. With an image you try a setting, look, try again. With a clip, each attempt is an upload, a wait, a download and a check. Getting it wrong twice costs a quarter of an hour.
Running locally, none of that applies. There's no transfer, so a retry costs only the processing time, and you can try three settings in the time one upload would have taken.
What Filezaar does instead
The video tools run in the browser, one file at a time:
- Compress video — make a clip small enough to send.
- Convert video — change the format to one your destination accepts.
- Trim video — cut it down before you compress it, which is usually the more effective move.
- Video to audio — pull the soundtrack out.
- Mute video — keep the picture, drop the sound.
MP4, MOV, WebM, MKV and AVI go in. There's no cap we set on size — what limits you is your device's memory and how much one browser tab will hold, which means a phone will handle less than a laptop. The rest of the video tools are grouped by category, and the how it works page explains what runs where.
Getting a clip under a limit without a target size
Since no tool here takes an exact number, the practical method is:
- Trim first. Cutting thirty seconds out of a clip removes more data than any compression setting will. This is the step people skip and it's the one that works — use trim video.
- Compress, then read the size. The result's size is shown before you download it. If it's under your limit, you're done.
- If it's still over, trim again rather than compressing harder. Squeezing a long clip into a small size costs picture quality in a way that cutting it doesn't.
- If the quality has gone bad, go the other way. A clip that must be tiny will look soft. Sometimes the right answer is a shorter clip at decent quality.
The common limits are 20 MB for Discord on a free account, 25 MB for Gmail and Outlook attachments, and 10 or 20 MB for a lot of application portals — which rarely tell you until the upload fails.
Where FreeConvert is plainly better
Two places worth stating.
Long and very large jobs. A two-hour 4K recording will compress on their hardware and will probably fail in a browser tab on a laptop. A server has more memory and isn't interrupted when your browser decides to reclaim it. For genuinely large work, uploading is the pragmatic choice.
Subtitle and format handling. FreeConvert's video tool accepts subtitle files, lets you choose how they're applied, and offers encoder choices and resolution changes that Filezaar's simpler tools don't. If you need that control, use it.
Who should stay on an upload tool
- Anyone working with files bigger than their device can comfortably hold.
- Anyone who needs an exact output size and is willing to iterate on a percentage to get it.
- Anyone processing many files at once in a batch.
- Anyone on a machine where the browser blocks local processing — some corporate policies do, and the symptom is a tool that errors at work and works at home.
Side by side
You can verify this yourself in 30 seconds using your browser's DevTools network panel — see our step-by-step verification guide.
| FreeConvert | Filezaar | |
|---|---|---|
| Upload location | Amazon's storage service, in Ireland — "We store all user files" | Your browser, on your device. 0 bytes uploaded |
| Network requirement | Needed for the upload and the download | Needed for the first visit only; cached after that |
| File size ceiling | Not stated publicly; the free plan runs on monthly credits | No cap we set — your device's memory is the practical limit |
| Queue delay | Not stated publicly | No queue. Work starts when you press the button |
| Price | Free plan with monthly credits; subscription plans available | Free. No account, no daily allowance |
Filezaar is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to FreeConvert. FreeConvert is a trademark of its respective owner.
Competitor details above are quoted from freeconvert.com's own privacy policy and video compressor page and were checked on 20 September 2026; they may change.
Questions
Will this work on my phone?
Yes, on a recent version of Chrome or Safari, with nothing to install. The caveat is memory, and it matters more for video than for anything else: a phone will handle a short clip and may fail on a long or high-resolution one. If a conversion stalls on your phone, try it on a laptop before assuming something else is wrong.
What if the tab crashes halfway through a long clip?
The work stops and nothing was sent anywhere, so there's no partial file on a server and no account left holding it. Reload and start again. Your original video on disk is never modified — the tool reads it, it doesn't rewrite it. For very long recordings, closing other tabs first helps: one tab has a finite amount of memory and the others compete for it.
Why is the result still bigger than my limit?
Usually because the clip is too long, not because the setting is wrong. Compression removes detail; it can't remove duration. Trim thirty seconds off and try again rather than pushing the quality down further — the picture will thank you.
How long does a long clip take?
Longer than you'd like, and it depends on your device rather than on our servers, because there are no servers. A short clip is seconds; a long, high-resolution recording can take several minutes. The upside of doing it locally is that you're not also waiting on an upload and a download, and a retry costs only the processing time.
Does it change the format of my video?
The compressor gives you back an MP4, which is the format phones, browsers and messaging apps all accept. If you need a specific different format, use convert video instead and pick the one you need.
Can I convert a two-hour recording?
Sometimes, on a desktop with plenty of free memory and not much else running. It's the case where a server-based tool is genuinely better, and if that's your regular workload, an upload converter is the right choice for you.