Can repeatedly re-saving a JPEG reduce its image quality?

Yes. Re-saving a photograph through lossy JPEG compression can reduce its quality. Repeated compression can introduce additional artifacts rather than preserve every detail of the original.

Adobe documents this risk in its JPEG export guidance. The Library of Congress independently classifies baseline JPEG as lossy and explains that image quality depends on the encoding and compression applied.

The scope matters: this check concerns exports that recompress the image using lossy JPEG encoding. It does not mean every save produces an equally visible change, or that every format with JPEG in its name uses the same compression method.