What is AVIF, and why is it showing up everywhere?
AVIF is an image format built on the AV1 video codec and published by the Alliance for Open Media in 2019. It compresses photographs far more efficiently than JPG, typically producing files half the size at the same visual quality, and it supports transparency, animation, HDR and wide colour. Because of that efficiency, large websites, content delivery networks and image optimisation services increasingly serve AVIF to any browser that advertises support for it, and all current browsers do.
The trouble starts the moment the image leaves the browser. Right-click, save, and the file on your disk ends in
.avif. Windows Photos needs an extension to open it, older macOS versions cannot, many Android gallery
apps show a broken thumbnail, and Word, PowerPoint, most email programs and nearly every upload form simply refuse
it. JPG, by contrast, has worked everywhere for three decades.
When to convert AVIF to JPG
- Inserting a downloaded image into a document, slide deck or spreadsheet.
- Uploading to a marketplace, job board, government portal or forum that lists accepted formats.
- Sending a picture to someone whose device cannot open AVIF.
- Editing in software that predates the format.
- Printing at a kiosk or online print service.
How this converter works
Every modern browser already contains an AVIF decoder; Tinyvert simply uses it. The file is decoded to raw pixels, drawn onto a canvas with a white background (JPG cannot store transparency) and re-encoded as a standard JPG at the quality you choose. The process runs entirely on your device, so there is no upload, no waiting in a queue and no copy of your image anywhere else. Because AVIF files are so compact, the resulting JPG will usually be larger, often two to four times, but it will open anywhere.
The one requirement is a browser new enough to decode AVIF natively: Chrome 85 and later, Edge 121 and later (Edge shipped without AVIF for years despite sharing Chrome's engine), Firefox 93 and later, or Safari 16 and later on iOS 16 and macOS Ventura (16.4 on older macOS versions). If your browser is older, the file will be reported as unreadable; updating the browser fixes it.
Quality settings
The default 92% preserves everything you would notice. Drop to 80% for email attachments and web uploads, where files should be small and nobody zooms in. Avoid going below 70% for images that will be viewed large, because the JPG artefacts stack on top of whatever compression the AVIF already had.
Related conversions
WebP is the other modern format that catches people out; see WebP to JPG. iPhone photos that will not open on Windows are HEIC, handled by HEIC to JPG. For a smaller JPG afterwards, use the compressor.