Drop your photo, get a JPEG under the 50 kb cap India Post’s own GDS portal instructions state — not the 100 KB some resizers sell as “compliant”. Everything runs in your browser; nothing leaves your device.
India Post’s Gramin Dak Sevak engagement runs on one portal: indiapostgdsonline.gov.in (Department of Posts, Ministry of Communications). The portal’s own Registration Instructions — published right on its homepage — state the whole upload rule at fields 14 & 15 of the registration form: upload your latest photo and signature in jpg/jpeg format, photo “size – not exceeding 50kb”, signature “size – not exceeding 20kb”. That is the entire specification. No pixel dimensions, no aspect ratio, no minimum size appear anywhere in the portal’s instructions. This page is preset to a 48 KB target — 49,152 bytes, under the cap whichever way the server counts a kilobyte — so the photo lands with room to spare at the best quality that fits.
Search for a GDS photo resizer and the tools contradict the portal outright. One promises output of “30–100 KB” while claiming to be “100% compliant with indiapostgdsonline.gov.in guidelines” — 100 KB is double the portal’s photo cap and five times its signature cap. Another prescribes a checklist of “320×400 pixels, 30–100 KB” photos and “300×120, 20–100 KB” signatures — none of those numbers exist in the portal’s instructions. A third states that files under 20 KB are “rejected for low quality” — the portal publishes no such floor. A 100 KB “GDS-ready” download simply bounces at upload, and a candidate who trusts the tool over the portal finds out at the worst moment. The numbers on this page are the portal’s own, quoted verbatim, with the source linked below.
Some tools compress “to exactly 50KB or 20KB”. The trouble: “50 KB” can mean 50,000 bytes (decimal) or 51,200 bytes (binary), and the portal doesn’t say which its server checks. A file measuring “exactly 20 KB” in binary units weighs 20,480 bytes and fails a 20,000-byte check. PixFit’s presets sidestep the ambiguity: the 48 KB photo target and the 19 KB signature suggestion are under the cap in both readings, so the question never becomes your problem.
The portal checks the format and the bytes; it does not check width, height or aspect ratio. The “320×400” and “4:5 ratio” figures circulating on resizer sites are their inventions, not India Post’s. For a photo that looks right to the verifying official, a normal passport-style head-and-shoulders crop against a plain light background works — roughly 3:4 portrait, say 600×800 pixels — but that’s composition advice, not a portal rule. The instructions do say latest photo: this photograph follows you to document verification if you’re shortlisted, so it should look like you do now, not like an old profile picture. There is no published minimum size either — this page’s preset pads the file to at least 31 KB with spec-valid JPEG padding purely as a hedge against the floors some tools claim; it costs nothing in quality, and you can clear the minimum field if you’d rather not pad.
Sign on white paper, photograph or scan it, and fit it here with the target set to 19 KB — under 20 kb in both readings. Crop tight to the ink so the preview doesn’t show a stripe of mostly paper: the signature cleanup tool finds the ink, trims to it and puts it on genuinely white background automatically, then hands back a clean JPEG ready to fit. The portal accepts jpg/jpeg only for both uploads — PixFit outputs exactly that.
The photo and signature upload happens at Stage 1, Registration — and the portal’s instructions are blunt about what follows: changes can be made only on the same screen before submission; “After submission there will not be any provision for subsequent editing of data.” One registration per candidate, tied to a unique mobile number and email (both OTP-verified) and your Aadhaar number; duplicate registrations are de-duplicated and liable to cancellation, and false information cancels candidature outright. In other words: get the files right before you start, because the form offers no second pass. GDS selection is merit-based on Class 10 marks — there is no exam at which to fix anything later.
After registration, Stage 2 (Apply Online) wants your addresses, SSC marks exactly as per your memo — the instructions warn that any deviation cancels candidature — and your division preferences; you can apply to one division in any one circle per cycle. The application fee is Rs.100, paid online in the portal (card, net banking or UPI, gateway charges extra, non-refundable); all female and trans-woman candidates and all SC/ST candidates are exempt. Engagement runs in recurring schedules announced on the portal — each schedule reuses the same registration flow and the same photo and signature rule, so files done right once serve the next cycle too.
A GDS application photo travels with your Aadhaar number, date of birth and Class 10 record, so it shouldn’t detour through a resizer’s server: PixFit re-encodes entirely in your browser — photo and signature never leave your device — and the re-encode strips EXIF metadata (including GPS) as a side effect. Register and apply only at indiapostgdsonline.gov.in. Applying to other government forms too? The IBPS/SBI photo, SSC signature and Railway RRB signature pages cover specs that do fix pixel boxes — or see the full verified table.
Spec source: the GDS Online Engagement portal’s own Registration Instructions at indiapostgdsonline.gov.in (Department of Posts, Government of India), fields 14 & 15 — read August 2026. These rules can change with any new engagement schedule — if the notification for your cycle or the form on your screen disagrees with this page, believe the portal.