Image Format Converter
Convert between JPG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, and HEIC
Image Format Converter tool
Image Format Converter: key facts
- What it does
- Convert between JPG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, and HEIC
- Category
- Image Tools
- Cost
- Free, with no account, sign-up, or install.
- Your data
- Runs entirely in your browser — the files and text you enter are never uploaded to a server.
- Last reviewed
- . Report an incorrect result.
What this tool is for
Choosing an image format is really a decision about where the picture is going — AVIF and WebP keep web pages light, PNG protects transparency, and JPG stays the safest thing to email. This converter re-encodes between those formats in your browser, identifying each source from its file signature rather than its extension, so a mislabelled screenshot still converts correctly.
It also takes the awkward inputs: HEIC photos straight off an iPhone, AVIF downloads, BMP exports, and SVG files, and it can trace flat artwork back out to vector SVG. Folders convert in one pass with a progress counter and a cancel button, and any file the browser refuses gets its own message and a retry instead of disappearing.
How to use the Image Format Converter
- Drop images onto the panel, click to browse, or paste one with Ctrl/⌘+V.
- Choose the format for the whole batch, or set a different output on any single row.
- Set quality for JPG, WebP, and AVIF, pick the colour that fills transparency when the target is JPG, and cap the longest edge if you want it smaller too.
- Start converting and watch the counter; cancelling keeps everything already finished.
- Download files individually, or take the batch as one ZIP.
Format support is detected at runtime
Conversion decodes the source image and re-encodes it in the target format through a canvas, at a default quality of 80%. What makes this tool slightly unusual is that it probes your browser's actual encoding support before offering a format, rather than assuming it.
That check is necessary because encode support is genuinely uneven. Decoding a format and encoding it are separate capabilities: a browser may display AVIF perfectly while being unable to produce it, and HEIC support is more limited still. Detecting rather than assuming means the tool offers only what will actually work.
Conversion happens locally, so images are not uploaded. Note that converting between lossy formats decodes and re-encodes, which compounds compression loss.
- JPEG, PNG, and WebP encoding are near-universally available; AVIF and HEIC are not.
- Converting JPEG to PNG cannot recover detail the JPEG already discarded — it just stops discarding more.
- PNG to JPEG loses transparency, which becomes black or white rather than clear.
What the Image Format Converter gets right
- Output covers JPG, PNG, WebP, and AVIF, and every finished file is checked against the format you actually asked for — so you never receive PNG bytes wearing a different extension.
- AVIF appears only when your browser can truly encode it, rather than being offered and then silently substituted.
- Sources are recognised by their magic bytes, which is how iPhone HEIC files are accepted even though iOS usually reports no file type for them.
- Transparency gets a colour you choose — white, black, or a custom hex — because JPG has no alpha channel and something has to go behind those pixels.
- Result rows show pixel dimensions and the exact percentage change, and say plainly when re-encoding made a file larger.
Which format to choose
The decision follows the content. JPEG suits photographs, where its lossy compression is efficient and its artefacts are hard to see, but it has no transparency and degrades on sharp edges and text. PNG is lossless with full transparency, ideal for screenshots, logos, and line art, and inefficient for photographs. WebP does both jobs — lossy or lossless, with transparency — at meaningfully smaller sizes than either, and is supported everywhere that matters now. AVIF compresses better again but encoding is slower and support thinner.
For the web, WebP is the sensible default in 2026, with a JPEG or PNG fallback where you need to support very old clients. GIF should be avoided for anything but the simplest animation, since its 256-colour limit and poor compression are comprehensively beaten by animated WebP or a short video.
Two cautions. Repeated lossy conversion accumulates damage, so keep an original and convert from it rather than converting a converted file. And conversion generally drops metadata, which helps privacy — photographs carry GPS coordinates and device details — but also removes colour profiles, which can shift how colours appear.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is GIF missing from the output formats?
Browsers provide no GIF encoder for canvas, and when asked for a format they cannot write they quietly substitute PNG. Handing you a .gif file full of PNG data is worse than leaving the option out, so GIF is input-only.
What happens to animated images?
A canvas holds one frame, so animation cannot survive re-encoding. Animated GIF, WebP, and PNG sources are detected as you add them and flagged before you convert, and the result repeats that only the first frame was kept.
WebP or AVIF — which should I pick?
AVIF normally lands smaller than WebP at matching visual quality, making it the better choice for photographs. WebP is the safer default, works almost everywhere, and still beats JPG comfortably.
Can it turn a photo into an SVG?
It traces one, redrawing the picture as flat colour shapes, which suits logos, icons, and line art. Photographs generate enormous path data that often exceeds the original file, and big images are rendered down to 1600 pixels first so the page stays responsive.
Does converting keep EXIF data and colour profiles?
No. Re-encoding through a canvas discards EXIF, GPS, and the embedded ICC profile, so wide-gamut photos come out as untagged sRGB. Nothing is uploaded either way — decoding, encoding, and zipping all happen on your device.
