"File size exceeds the maximum limit" — how to get under it without wrecking the photo
Your file is over the ceiling. Compressing harder is the wrong first move — resizing first is what keeps the photo looking like a photo.
This one at least says what it means. The file is larger than the portal allows. The interesting question is how to get it down, because the obvious answer produces a photograph that is technically valid and visibly ruined.
Resize before you compress
A phone photograph is typically three to four thousand pixels across. That is roughly a hundred times more picture than a 200 x 230 upload box will ever display. If you compress that file down to 50 KB while keeping all those pixels, the quality has to fall through the floor to get there, and the result looks smeared and blocky.
Set the pixel dimensions the form asks for first. The file usually lands inside the limit on its own, with no visible compression at all, because there is simply far less picture to store. Only if it is still over does quality need to come down, and then only a little.
Do it in one step
Open the exam photo resizer, enter the pixel size and the maximum KB from your notification, and it sets the dimensions and then picks the highest quality that fits under the ceiling. It uses the whole allowance rather than compressing further than it needs to, so if the form permits 300 KB you get a 300 KB-class file, not a 13 KB one.
If there is no pixel size to set
Some exams, JEE Main among them, give a KB range and no pixel requirement. In that case use compress image, which keeps the proportions and shrinks the picture only as far as it has to in order to fit the budget.
Watch the other end
If the notification gives a range rather than a single ceiling, do not overshoot downwards. Getting from 800 KB to 8 KB solves this error and creates the opposite one. Put both numbers into the tool so the result lands between them.
Questions
Why does resizing reduce the file size so much?
A JPEG stores detail per pixel. Cutting the width and height each by a factor of ten leaves a hundredth of the pixels, so there is a hundredth as much detail to store.
Will resizing make my face unrecognisable?
Not at the sizes these forms ask for. A 200 x 230 box is what the portal will display anyway, so setting the file to it loses nothing that would ever have been seen.
Should I use maximum compression to be safe?
No. Aim for the middle or upper part of the allowed range. A file compressed far below the limit looks worse for no benefit, and if the form also sets a minimum it can fail that instead.
My PDF is over the limit, not my photo.
Use the PDF compressor, which adjusts image quality inside the document until the whole file fits the window you give it.