Created
November 11, 2025 15:36
-
-
Save xposedbones/a7ba5bb6c26b1d1224cdf27a421d30e5 to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.
ffmpeg script to compress a video down to a specific file size
This file contains hidden or bidirectional Unicode text that may be interpreted or compiled differently than what appears below. To review, open the file in an editor that reveals hidden Unicode characters.
Learn more about bidirectional Unicode characters
| #!/bin/bash | |
| # | |
| # Re-encode a video to a target size in MB. | |
| # ffmpeg is obviously a requirement here, but if you don't have it, run 'brew install ffmpeg' | |
| # Example: | |
| # ./compress.sh video.mp4 15 | |
| T_SIZE="$2" # target size in MB | |
| T_FILE="${1%.*}-$2MB.mp4" # filename out | |
| # Original duration in seconds | |
| O_DUR=$(\ | |
| ffprobe \ | |
| -v error \ | |
| -show_entries format=duration \ | |
| -of csv=p=0 "$1") | |
| # Original audio rate | |
| O_ARATE=$(\ | |
| ffprobe \ | |
| -v error \ | |
| -select_streams a:0 \ | |
| -show_entries stream=bit_rate \ | |
| -of csv=p=0 "$1") | |
| # Original audio rate in KiB/s | |
| O_ARATE=$(\ | |
| awk \ | |
| -v arate="$O_ARATE" \ | |
| 'BEGIN { printf "%.0f", (arate / 1024) }') | |
| # Target size is required to be less than the size of the original audio stream | |
| T_MINSIZE=$(\ | |
| awk \ | |
| -v arate="$O_ARATE" \ | |
| -v duration="$O_DUR" \ | |
| 'BEGIN { printf "%.2f", ( (arate * duration) / 8192 ) }') | |
| # Equals 1 if target size is ok, 0 otherwise | |
| IS_MINSIZE=$(\ | |
| awk \ | |
| -v size="$T_SIZE" \ | |
| -v minsize="$T_MINSIZE" \ | |
| 'BEGIN { print (minsize < size) }') | |
| # Give useful information if size is too small | |
| if [[ $IS_MINSIZE -eq 0 ]]; then | |
| printf "%s\n" "Target size ${T_SIZE}MB is too small!" >&2 | |
| printf "%s %s\n" "Try values larger than" "${T_MINSIZE}MB" >&2 | |
| exit 1 | |
| fi | |
| # Set target audio bitrate | |
| T_ARATE=$O_ARATE | |
| # Calculate target video rate - MB -> KiB/s | |
| T_VRATE=$(\ | |
| awk \ | |
| -v size="$T_SIZE" \ | |
| -v duration="$O_DUR" \ | |
| -v audio_rate="$O_ARATE" \ | |
| 'BEGIN { print ( ( size * 8192.0 ) / ( 1.048576 * duration ) - audio_rate) }') | |
| # Perform the conversion | |
| ffmpeg \ | |
| -y \ | |
| -i "$1" \ | |
| -c:v libx264 \ | |
| -b:v "$T_VRATE"k \ | |
| -pass 1 \ | |
| -an \ | |
| -f mp4 \ | |
| /dev/null \ | |
| && \ | |
| ffmpeg \ | |
| -i "$1" \ | |
| -c:v libx264 \ | |
| -b:v "$T_VRATE"k \ | |
| -pass 2 \ | |
| -c:a aac \ | |
| -b:a "$T_ARATE"k \ | |
| "$T_FILE" |
Sign up for free
to join this conversation on GitHub.
Already have an account?
Sign in to comment