What AVIF is and why it needs converting
AVIF is an image format from the Alliance for Open Media, built on the AV1 video codec and stored in a HEIF-style container. Version 1.0 of the spec appeared in 2019. At the same visual quality, AVIF files are often noticeably smaller than JPG. The cost is encoding time: AV1 encoders are far slower than JPEG ones, which is why this site only offers AVIF as a source and not as an output. Decoding is cheap, so any browser that can show an AVIF can feed it to this tool.
How the conversion runs
The file is loaded into an image element by your browser, so it only works if that browser already supports AVIF. Chrome has done so since version 85 (2020), Firefox since 93 (2021), and Safari added support in the 16.x releases. If decoding fails, you will see "Could not convert this image." The pixels are then drawn on a white canvas of identical dimensions and exported as JPEG. The quality slider runs from 10% to 100% and defaults to 90%.
Worked example
An AVIF photo of 4000×3000 pixels might be 350 KB. Saved as a JPG at 90% it will normally be several times larger, perhaps 1.5 to 3 MB, because JPEG needs more bits for the same look. Dropping to 75% could bring it closer to 800 KB to 1.2 MB, with some loss of fine texture. The point is that going from AVIF to JPG trades size for compatibility, not the reverse. Actual numbers depend heavily on the picture.
| AVIF capability | Result in the JPG |
|---|---|
| 8-bit sRGB photo | Converted directly |
| 10-bit or 12-bit colour, HDR (PQ or HLG) | Reduced to 8-bit through the canvas, so the HDR highlights are not preserved |
| Wide-gamut colour | Typically mapped into the canvas colour space, so saturated tones may look slightly different |
| Alpha channel | Flattened onto white |
| Animated AVIF sequence | One frame only |
Common mistakes
- Using JPG for a transparent AVIF. The transparent area turns white. Use AVIF to PNG if you need to keep it.
- Expecting HDR to survive. JPG is an 8-bit format here, so a bright HDR image will look flatter.
- Trying an unsupported browser. If the file will not load, open this page in a current Chrome, Firefox or Safari rather than assuming the file is corrupt.
If an AVIF came from a website, you may also meet WebP. The equivalent for that is WebP to JPG.