Boa Support

Boa: Video Compressor, make your videos smaller so you can keep them all.

Common questions

Where did my compressed video go?

Into your photo library, in an album called Boa. The compressed copy is a new video, and your original is left exactly where it was, untouched.

I compressed videos, so why is my storage the same?

This is the most common question, and the answer is by design. Compressing adds a smaller copy; it does not remove anything. Until you delete the originals, you are storing both, so your free space actually goes down slightly.

The Reclaim tab is where the space comes back. It lists every original that now has a compressed copy, shows what deleting each one would give you, and lets you delete them once you are happy with the copy. That is why the rest of the app says "could free" rather than "freed".

One more step after that: deleted videos sit in Recently Deleted in Photos for 30 days, and the space is not truly back until that album is emptied. You can empty it yourself in Photos → Albums → Recently Deleted.

Can I get an original back after deleting it?

For 30 days, yes, you can recover it from Recently Deleted in the Photos app. After that it is gone permanently, and Boa cannot retrieve it. This is why Boa lets you play the compressed copy against the original, side by side, before you delete anything.

How much quality do I lose?

That depends on the settings you choose, which is exactly why the comparison view exists. Open a row in the Reclaim tab, drag the divider across the frame, and judge it on your own footage rather than on a promise. HDR and wide colour are preserved by default, so HLG and Dolby Vision video keeps its look rather than coming back washed out.

The compressed copy came out bigger than the original

It can happen with a video that was already heavily compressed, since re-encoding it at a higher bitrate than it started with makes it larger. The Reclaim tab flags these, and there is nothing to gain by deleting that original. Try a lower quality preset, or simply keep the original.

My library looks empty

Boa needs full photo library access to list your videos. With limited access it can only see what you have specifically picked, which usually looks like an empty library. Change it in Settings → Apps → Boa → Photos → Full Access.

Compression seems stuck at 0%

If the video lives in iCloud rather than on your device, it has to be downloaded before it can be compressed, and a large video over a slow connection takes a while. Boa shows this as "Downloading from iCloud" with its own progress. On cellular or Low Data Mode it asks first, rather than quietly spending your data.

Does compression keep running if I leave the app?

Yes. A queue keeps going with the app in the background or the screen locked. Force-quitting the app does stop it, because iOS ends the background task when you swipe the app away.

How do I restore a purchase on a new device?

Open Boa, tap the crown button in the toolbar, and choose to restore. Purchases are tied to your Apple Account, so anything bought before comes back without paying again.

How do I cancel my subscription?

Settings → your name → Subscriptions → Boa, or through the same crown button in the app. Cancelling stops the next renewal and you keep access until the current period ends. The lifetime purchase is a single payment, so there is nothing to cancel, and it does not renew.

Are my videos uploaded anywhere?

No. Compression runs entirely on your device using Apple's own video frameworks. Your videos are never uploaded, never seen by us, and never sent anywhere. There is no account and no sign-in. See the Privacy Policy for the full detail.

Something else

Bug reports and feature requests are both welcome at jgba.apps@gmail.com. If something went wrong with a specific video, the length, the resolution, and roughly how it was recorded, such as slow motion, time lapse, 4K or HDR, is usually enough to reproduce it.