How to convert an image — step by step

Converting an image from one format to another changes the way pixel data is stored, compressed, and interpreted by browsers, operating systems, and applications. Our free online image converter accepts JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF, AVIF, BMP, TIFF, ICO, and HEIC/HEIF as input, and outputs JPG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, GIF, BMP, TIFF, or ICO (HEIC is input-only). Conversion runs in your browser — HEIC/HEIF is decoded with WebAssembly, then encoded with local codecs. JPG/PNG/WebP/AVIF use WASM; BMP/GIF/TIFF/ICO use lightweight JavaScript encoders (multi-size ICO packs PNG frames at 16, 32, 48, and 256). A secure, reCAPTCHA-protected server path is used only if a browser encoder fails. Save to history is the main action that uploads files: it stores the original and result for 7 days. No account is required to convert or download.

Follow these steps to convert one image or an entire batch in a single pass:

  1. Add your images. Click Select images or drag and drop files from your desktop onto the upload area. You can add up to 20 images at once. Each file can be up to 20 MB. Supported inputs: JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF, AVIF, BMP, TIFF, ICO, or HEIC/HEIF. Files are read locally — nothing is uploaded just by adding them to the queue.
  2. Choose an output format. Each image in the queue shows its source format alongside an output format selector. Change the format for a single image using its individual selector, or use the Apply to all dropdown in the toolbar to set every image in the queue to the same output format in one click. The available formats are:
    • JPG — ideal for photographs and complex images with many colours. JPG uses lossy compression, meaning some detail is discarded to achieve smaller file sizes. Use the quality slider to balance sharpness against size.
    • PNG — best for graphics, logos, screenshots, and any image that needs a transparent background. PNG uses lossless compression, so the output is pixel-perfect and no detail is lost. PNG files are typically larger than JPG.
    • WebP — Google's modern format that delivers both lossy and lossless compression at significantly smaller file sizes than JPG or PNG for equivalent quality. WebP is supported in all modern browsers and is the recommended format for web images.
    • AVIF — the most advanced web format available here, offering exceptional compression efficiency, particularly at lower quality settings. AVIF is supported in Chrome, Firefox, and Safari 16+. Encoding uses libavif in your browser when available, with a server fallback only if WASM cannot load.
    • GIF — useful for simple graphics and legacy systems. Conversion produces a static GIF in your browser (animated source frames are flattened to a still image).
    • BMP — an uncompressed bitmap format still required by some older Windows applications and embedded systems. Encoded in your browser.
    • TIFF — a high-fidelity format common in print, scanning, and archival workflows. Encoded in your browser as uncompressed RGB TIFF.
    • ICO — Windows / favicon icon packages. We build a multi-size ICO (16, 32, 48, and 256) entirely in your browser.
  3. Adjust quality (optional). For JPG, WebP, and AVIF outputs, a quality slider appears next to the format selector (or via the settings icon on each item). Drag the slider to the left to reduce file size at the cost of some image detail, or keep it near 100% for the highest fidelity output. 92% is a practical default that is visually indistinguishable from 100% in most images while being noticeably smaller.
  4. Remove metadata (optional). Tick Remove metadata in the toolbar to strip EXIF data, GPS location tags, camera and lens information, and copyright fields from every output file. This is important for privacy when sharing photos taken on a smartphone, and it can reduce file size by a few kilobytes per image.
  5. Convert. Click Convert all to process every image in the queue on your device. No upload is required for a normal convert. Progress is shown per item; errors are flagged individually so the rest of the queue continues unaffected. Only if a browser encoder fails do we briefly use a reCAPTCHA-protected server convert (the result is returned for download and is not kept unless you save to history).
  6. Download your results. Once conversion is complete, click the download icon on any individual item to save just that image, or click Download all to receive all converted images bundled into a single ZIP file. Downloads stay on your device. Individual files are named with a -converted suffix so originals and results never get confused.
  7. Save to history (optional). Click Save to history to upload both the original and the converted result and store them for 7 days. After that, expired items are purged automatically. Saved conversions can be re-opened, re-converted with different settings, and re-downloaded while they remain in history. History is tied to your session by default and claimed to your account when you sign in.

Which image format should you use?

Choosing the right image format is one of the most impactful decisions you can make for web performance and visual quality. Each format has distinct strengths, and using the wrong one for the job can result in unnecessarily large files, poor quality, or compatibility issues. Here is a practical guide:

  • Convert HEIC/HEIF to JPG or PNG when you have iPhone photos that will not open on Windows, Android, or older software. HEIC/HEIF is Apple's default camera format; converting to JPG is the most compatible share-and-upload choice. This tool accepts HEIC/HEIF as input only — it does not export HEIC.
  • Convert PNG to JPG when you have a photograph saved as PNG. PNG's lossless compression is overkill for photos and produces files 3–5× larger than a JPG of equivalent quality. Unless the image contains transparency, converting to JPG will dramatically reduce file size with no perceptible difference.
  • Convert JPG to PNG when you need to preserve a transparent background or when you are editing an image multiple times. Each time a JPG is saved, lossy compression re-runs and quality degrades slightly. PNG avoids this "generation loss" entirely.
  • Convert JPG or PNG to WebP when you are optimising images for a website. WebP consistently achieves 25–35% smaller file sizes than JPG at the same visual quality, directly improving page load times and Core Web Vitals scores. All major browsers have supported WebP since 2020.
  • Convert to AVIF for the absolute smallest file sizes on the web. AVIF can reduce image weight by 50% or more compared to JPG at equivalent quality, particularly for photographs. It is the successor format to WebP and is worth using wherever full browser support can be assumed or a WebP fallback is provided.
  • Convert JPG or PNG to GIF, BMP, TIFF, or ICO when a specific platform or workflow requires those formats — for example a legacy Windows app (BMP), print pipeline (TIFF), simple legacy graphic (GIF), or favicon package (ICO).
  • Convert GIF to WebP or PNG if the GIF is a static image rather than an animation. GIFs are limited to 256 colours, making them an extremely poor choice for photographs or illustrations. A WebP or PNG version of the same static graphic will look significantly better and be smaller.

Common use cases for image format conversion

Image format conversion may sound like a technical task, but it is something that almost every person working with digital images encounters regularly. Here are the most frequent real-world scenarios where a fast, free online converter saves meaningful time:

  • Web performance optimisation. Search engines and browsers reward fast-loading pages. Replacing JPG and PNG images on a website with WebP or AVIF equivalents is one of the highest-impact, lowest-effort performance improvements available. Google's PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse tools will specifically flag images in legacy formats as opportunities for savings.
  • Platform upload requirements. Many platforms and CMS tools specify accepted file formats. Squarespace and Shopify accept WebP natively; some older systems require JPG only. Converting a batch of images to the required format before uploading avoids rejection errors and manual re-uploading.
  • Email and messaging attachments. PNG files are often several times larger than a JPG of the same image. Converting a PNG screenshot or photo to JPG before attaching it to an email can bring a multi-megabyte attachment down to a fraction of its original size, ensuring it falls below most email attachment limits.
  • App and game asset pipelines. Mobile and desktop applications often ship assets in WebP or AVIF because smaller textures mean faster load times and less storage on the end user's device. Converting source PNG or JPG assets to WebP as part of a build workflow is standard practice in modern game and app development.
  • Removing transparent backgrounds. When a PNG with a transparent background needs to be placed on a page with a solid colour background, converting to JPG with a white fill removes the transparency cleanly and produces a smaller file. Our converter automatically fills a white background when exporting to JPG, handling this seamlessly.
  • Preparing images for print services. Online print services frequently require JPG files rather than PNG or WebP. Converting your edited PNG designs to high-quality JPG before uploading ensures the print service can process the files without issues.
  • Reducing cloud storage usage. A folder of PNG screenshots or RAW-exported JPGs can occupy gigabytes of cloud storage. Batch converting them to WebP can cut that footprint dramatically with no visible quality loss at normal viewing sizes, freeing up storage quota.
  • Social media and content scheduling tools. Buffer, Later, Hootsuite, and similar tools often handle JPG and PNG reliably while occasionally struggling with WebP or AVIF uploads. Batch converting a library of WebP images to JPG before importing into a scheduling tool avoids compatibility headaches.

The history of image formats and online conversion tools

The image formats in use today are the product of decades of competing standards, corporate rivalries, open-source innovation, and the relentless pressure to move more visual information across slower and slower network connections than engineers originally imagined possible.

GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) was introduced by CompuServe in 1987, making it one of the oldest image formats still in widespread use. Its 256-colour palette was fine for simple graphics and icons on the early web, and its support for basic animation made it culturally iconic. But GIF was never suitable for photographs, and its palette limitation means it has been functionally obsolete for photographic use since JPG's emergence.

JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) was standardised in 1992 and quickly became the dominant format for photographs on the web and in digital cameras. Its lossy discrete cosine transform (DCT) compression could reduce a raw photograph to one-tenth its original size with little perceptible quality loss at high quality settings — a revelation on the dial-up internet of the 1990s. JPEG's dominance lasted for nearly 25 years and it remains the most widely used photographic format in the world today.

PNG (Portable Network Graphics) was developed in 1996 specifically as a patent-free replacement for GIF, which was subject to licensing restrictions on LZW compression. PNG offered lossless compression, a full 24-bit colour palette, and — crucially — a proper alpha transparency channel, making it the standard for web graphics, logos, and user interface assets. The "PNG vs JPG" debate (lossless transparency vs smaller photographs) has been a constant in web development ever since.

For years, the web used just these three formats: GIF for animations and simple graphics, JPEG for photographs, and PNG for everything else. The absence of a modern, high-compression alternative was increasingly felt as the web moved to retina displays and mobile data connections, where image weight directly impacted user experience.

WebP was introduced by Google in 2010, derived from the VP8 video codec. It promised both lossy compression better than JPEG and lossless compression better than PNG, along with animation support to replace GIF. Adoption was slow — Firefox and Safari held out for years — but by 2020 all major browsers had full WebP support, and it became the de facto standard for web image delivery. Serving WebP versions of images became a recommended best practice in Google's developer guidance and a direct ranking signal through Core Web Vitals.

AVIF (AV1 Image File Format) arrived as a royalty-free standard in 2019, built on the AV1 video codec developed by the Alliance for Open Media (which includes Google, Mozilla, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Netflix among its members). AVIF achieves substantially better compression than WebP — particularly at lower quality settings — and supports HDR, wide colour gamut, and film grain preservation. Chrome added AVIF support in 2020, Firefox in 2021, and Safari 16 in 2022. It is now the most capable widely-supported image format available on the web.

Online image conversion tools emerged in parallel with the web itself. The earliest ones were server-side scripts — PHP using the GD library or ImageMagick — that accepted an upload, ran a command-line conversion, and returned the result as a download. These tools were slow and raised genuine privacy concerns about images being stored on third-party servers. The shift to client-side conversion using the HTML5 Canvas API (around 2012–2015) resolved that for formats the browser can encode natively, such as JPG, PNG, and WebP. Modern WASM codecs and pure-JS encoders (MozJPEG, libwebp, libavif, oxipng, gifenc, UTIF, ICO packing, and libheif for HEIC/HEIF decode) now cover the formats in this tool — which is why convert and download stay in your browser by default, with a rare server fallback only if an encoder fails, and optional history retained for 7 days only if you choose to save.

The history of image formats is, in many ways, the history of the web itself: a constant negotiation between file size, visual quality, browser support, patent encumbrances, and the ever-increasing resolution of the screens we use to view images. The formats available in this tool represent the practical state of the art in 2025 — and the next generation, including JPEG XL, is already in discussion for future inclusion.