Provided are a method and apparatus for determining a target compression rate for a file, which may be calculated using a predetermined algorithm based on a target file size. There is provided a method for compressing a file, the method including using a processor to perform at least the steps of compressing a target file at an initial compression rate and determining a size of the compressed target file; comparing the size of the target file compressed at the initial compression rate to sizes of a first file and a second file compressed at the initial compression rate; based on the comparisons and a target size for the target file, calculating a target compression rate; and compressing the target file using the target compression rate.