Where AVIF files come from
AVIF has spread quickly since browsers adopted it. Major sites and image delivery networks now serve AVIF to browsers that accept it, so when you right-click and save an image, you may end up with a .avif file. Some Android phones and cameras can also capture AVIF, and design tools increasingly export it. The format is excellent for delivery but awkward for everyday use: many image viewers, older versions of Windows and macOS, office suites, print services and social media upload forms either cannot open AVIF or reject it outright.
Why JPG is the practical choice
JPG is the lowest common denominator of photo formats. Converting an AVIF to JPG gives you a file you can attach to an email, place in a document, edit in any photo editor, print at a kiosk or upload to virtually any website. The trade-off is size: JPG needs roughly twice as many bytes for the same quality. For most uses that does not matter.
How the conversion works
AVIF decoding uses libavif with the dav1d AV1 decoder, compiled to WebAssembly and running in a background Web Worker. That means it works even in environments that cannot display AVIF natively. If the AVIF has an alpha channel, transparent areas are blended onto white. The image is then encoded with MozJPEG at the selected quality. Nothing is sent over the network.
Converting many files at once
If you saved a whole gallery of images from a website and they all turned out to be AVIF, drop them in together. Several files are decoded in parallel in separate background threads, and you can download the whole set as a single ZIP when they are done.
Choosing the quality
- 90 (default): a faithful copy for viewing, printing and editing.
- 80: smaller files for email and messaging.
- 95+: only needed if you will edit and re-save repeatedly.
Need transparency?
If your AVIF has a transparent background, for example a logo or a product cut-out, convert it with AVIF to PNG instead. PNG preserves the alpha channel losslessly and is just as widely supported as JPG.