AVIF is one of the newest image formats on the web, and one of the least supported by the
software people keep on their desks.
It looks like a broken file on older setups
Save a picture from a modern site and you can end up with a .avif. Windows Photos only
opens it after a codec has been added from the Store, Photoshop needs a recent release,
and plenty of viewers show a grey placeholder or nothing at all. A JPG opens the same
moment the download finishes.
Chats, mail and forms choke on it
On WhatsApp, in an email client's preview or behind the upload button of a competition, a
grant application or a print order, AVIF is frequently refused or quietly re-compressed.
JPG is on every one of those lists, which is why it is still the format for sending a
picture to a person rather than to a browser.
Your editor expects something else
Importing into a slide deck, a brochure template or an old photo editor is smoother with
JPG than with a format those tools may not have a decoder for. Converting once, up front,
avoids a conversion that silently happens somewhere worse.
What the conversion changes
AVIF can carry more colour and more transparency than JPG — those extras have to go somewhere.
Colour is mapped back to sRGB
AVIF often stores ten bits per channel in a wide gamut, which is how it keeps a sunset or a
neon sign from banding. A JPG is eight bits in sRGB, so very saturated colours are pulled
in slightly and the brightest highlights can clip. For a photo that only has to look right
on screen the change is subtle; for product colour it is worth a look.
Transparency is filled with white
AVIF supports an alpha channel, JPG does not. A transparent AVIF therefore comes out on a
solid background, white by default, black if you change it. To keep the cut-out, use the
AVIF to PNG converter instead — PNG stores the transparency the
AVIF had.
The file grows, sometimes a lot
AVIF is typically half the size of an equivalent JPG, so the conversion can easily double
or triple the weight. A lossy source is also being encoded a second time, which is why the
quality here starts at 82 and is worth pushing to 90 when the AVIF was already small and
soft.
One frame, upright, no metadata
An animated AVIF — a short moving banner, for example — becomes a still JPG of its first
frame. Orientation data is applied so the picture is not sideways, and camera, GPS and
colour-profile details are dropped instead of being written into the JPG.
How to convert AVIF to JPG
Three steps, no account and nothing to install.
Add the AVIF
Drag it onto the box, click to browse, or paste it with Ctrl+V (Cmd+V on a Mac). Files up
to 25 MB are accepted, and a file saved from a web page works like any other.
Choose the quality and the background
Quality 82 is a good default; use 90 or above when the source was already compressed. If
the AVIF had transparency, pick white for print and forms or black for a dark layout. The
width field is optional and only needed when the picture should be smaller.
Download the JPG
The preview shows the converted picture with the old and new weights, so the size increase
is visible before you save. One click downloads a .jpg that opens in any viewer, editor or
upload form.
Three tips before you convert
A couple of minutes of care keeps the colours and the detail intact.
Do the edits before the conversion
Once the picture is a JPG, every crop and save costs sharpness. Crop, straighten and resize
inside the AVIF-aware tool you have — or set the width here — and treat the JPG as the
final copy rather than the file you keep working on.
Watch strongly saturated colours
Deep reds, purples and electric blues are where a wide-gamut AVIF differs most from an
sRGB JPG. Compare the preview with the original at full size if accurate colour matters,
and keep the AVIF file as the reference. If you need a lighter web copy afterwards, the
WebP to JPG converter and
the compressor both work on the result.
Convert the largest version you have
Sites serve several AVIF sizes and the one you saved may be the smallest. If the image will
be printed or shown full screen, fetch the largest variant first — enlarging the small one
later only adds pixels that were never there.
Frequently asked questions
Is this converter free?
Yes. No account, no trial, no watermark and no cap on how many images you convert. A short rate limit keeps the service available to everyone else while you work.
Why can my computer not open AVIF files?
AVIF reached browsers years before it reached desktop software. Windows needs an extra codec before Photos will show one, older Photoshop and Office releases have no decoder at all, and many viewers simply do not recognise the extension. JPG support is built into essentially everything sold in the last two decades.
What happens to transparency and to animated AVIFs?
Transparency is filled with the background colour, white by default, because JPG has no alpha channel. An animation is reduced to its first frame, since a JPG is a single still picture. Use the AVIF to PNG page when the transparency has to be kept.
Will the colours change?
Slightly, if the AVIF used a wide gamut or high dynamic range: the JPG is eight-bit sRGB, so extremely saturated colours are pulled in and the brightest highlights can clip. For most photographs the difference is invisible; for product shots and artwork, compare the preview against the original before you rely on it.
How large may my AVIF be, and is it stored?
Up to 25 MB per file and 50 megapixels per image. Files are processed on our server and not stored: the AVIF is decoded and only the finished JPG is sent back to your browser.