How to fix Efficiently encode images in PageSpeed Insights

Efficiently encode images is a compression check, not a layout check. PageSpeed Insights looks at each JPEG, PNG, and WebP on the page and estimates how many kilobytes you could drop by re-encoding at similar visible quality. It is not saying the photo is the wrong format, and it is not saying the pixels are too large - those are different audits (Serve images in next-gen formats and Properly size images).

The report names the files. You still have to fetch those originals from your site or CMS, re-encode them, and put the smaller copies back. EditItAll does not crawl your URL or talk to PageSpeed Insights. It just does the re-encode, in your browser.

Open the JPEG compressor (or the matching PNG / WebP tool if that is what the report listed) and drop the heavy originals in:

• Leave quality near 80 for photographs. That is usually indistinguishable on a screen and is the same band the JPEG quality guide recommends.
• If a photo is thousands of pixels wide but displays at a fraction of that, set max dimension to 1920 or 1280 - those are the real options on the compressor. Oversized pixels are the other half of page weight; see compress JPEG for the web.
• Read the in → out size in the results list. Too big? Drop quality about ten points and run again. There is no “compress to N KB” box - size is an output.

Export, download, replace the files on your server or in your CMS, then re-run PageSpeed Insights. Everything stayed on your device; you can go offline after the page loads. EXIF is stripped on export.

If the savings look small after a JPEG re-encode, PageSpeed Insights may also be asking for a modern format. WebP and AVIF usually beat JPEG at the same visible quality. Convert a copy with JPG to WebP or the WebP compressor and compare the listed sizes. Keep a JPEG fallback if you still serve older browsers.

PNG photos almost never belong on a web page. Convert those to JPG or WebP; lossless PNG recompress will not shrink a photograph much. The compressing images cluster covers the format choice in more depth.

Re-encoding will not make a 4000-pixel hero fit an 800-pixel slot - that is Properly size images, and it needs a smaller pixel size. It will not lazy-load below-the-fold pictures, and it will not write srcset for you. EditItAll also cannot hit a kilobyte target automatically or remove JPEG artefacts that are already in the file. Compress once from the original, then stop.