Pics are 5megs in storage size? How to take pics that save less space on phone without switching to Heif format?

[SlicePi]

s24fe 128gigs, stock camera app

3:4 ratio, 12megapixels (I only take pics, no videos)

I tried Heif option. My win10 laptop doesn't support it. The codec costs $1 at Microsoft.
It also means people receiving the heif pics will also need to buy the codec.
FU Microsoft.. no!

Since the phone has 7yrs of updates, i  think I will be out of space waaay before then with pics being  5 megabytes in size

Any other way to have smaller sized pics?

[realaud]

You would be very surprised at just how much smaller the file gets just by cropping a small margin off the edges.

[SlicePi]

Switched to 9:16 ratio (which is basically cropping the left/right edges off of 3:4 ratio) and saved 25% space.

3.7megabytes vs 5

Thx!

[realaud]

That works too.  I just really never pay attention to file size, but when I do, and feel a file is too large, I just go into the editor and crop a very thin slice all around the edge.  I am continually surprised as how much data is contained in that small slice, but it drastically reduces file size.  No one needs the edges anyway if they frame their subject right; and what I trim off is completely extraneous.

[Oxford]

I believe the forthcoming Gallery assistant has the capability of reducing size of pictures for individual photos or groups of photos. Hopefully it will be released soon in the US.