What are the recommended settings?

For almost every site, the defaults are the recommended settings - you can install, connect, and leave everything as it is. Here is what the key settings do, and the few you might change.

Leave these on (the defaults)

• Compression mode: Lossy - the smallest files, with quality differences invisible to most viewers. See Will optimizing reduce my image quality?.
• Generate WebP and Generate AVIF (under Output Formats) - these make the modern, smaller copies. See What's the difference between WebP and AVIF?.
• Delivery method: Picture tag - serves those modern copies safely on almost any host, including behind a CDN. See Which delivery method should I use?.
• Auto-optimize on upload - optimizes every new image automatically.
• Keep backup of originals - lets you restore any image later.

Optional, depending on your site

• Resize large images (off by default) - turn it on to scale oversized originals down to a maximum before optimizing. See Does SlashImage resize my large images?.
• Convert PNG to JPEG (off by default) - turn it on to convert photographic PNGs that have no transparency to JPEG for extra savings. See Why isn't my PNG converting to JPEG?.

Then optimize

With your settings in place, run a bulk pass to catch up your existing library. See How do I optimize images I already uploaded?.

See also

• How do I optimize images I already uploaded?
• Which delivery method should I use?
• Will optimizing reduce my image quality?