Optimize by default settings

Cloudinary performs various default optimizations when delivering media assets. You can control these for your product environment in Settings > Optimization and override them through transformation parameters.

In addition to the options mentioned on this page, there are other default optimizations for images and videos.

Default automatic format

The Automatic format setting in the Optimize by default section applies automatic format selection to all images and/or videos delivered from your product environment, depending on your selection, regardless of whether other transformations are also applied.

This determines the best format in which to deliver each of your images and videos.

As this counts as a transformation, default image quality or default video quality is also invoked.

To override this setting, in order to deliver an original image or video, use the original flag (fl_original in URLs). This flag does not count as a transformation and does not invoke default image/video quality.

To override this setting, in order to deliver a particular format, set the format parameter in your transformation (f_ in URLs).

Default image width

By selecting Limit maximum image width, any images that are delivered with no other resizing transformations are automatically downscaled if they exceed the width settings for mobile or desktop.

The default maximum width is 828 pixels for smartphone devices and 1920 pixels for other devices, including desktops, laptops and tablets, but you can change these in the settings.

As this counts as a transformation, default image quality is also invoked.

To override this setting, in order to deliver an original image, use the original flag (fl_original in URLs). This flag does not count as a transformation and does not invoke default image quality.