What Is AVIF? A Complete Format Guide
Last updated: October 2026. AVIF is the image format that quietly claimed the "smallest photo on the modern web" slot. This guide explains what it is, where it came from, exactly which browsers and apps open it today, what it does better than JPG and WebP — and the honest catches the marketing doesn't mention. Every converter we link to here runs entirely in your browser: no file ever leaves your device.
What AVIF actually is
AVIF (AV1 Image File Format, extension .avif) is a still-image format built directly on AV1, the royalty-free video codec released in 2018 by the Alliance for Open Media — an industry consortium whose members include Google, Apple, Microsoft, Mozilla, Amazon, Intel and Netflix. The image format specification followed in 2019, and the idea is as clever as it is simple: a video codec's job is to squeeze a stream of frames into as few bits as possible, so point that machinery at a single frame and you get a still image that benefits from a decade of video-compression research. The file rides in the same ISO container family as HEIC — the iPhone photo format — with one big difference under the hood: HEIC compresses with the video codec HEVC, while AVIF compresses with AV1. Because AV1 is royalty-free, the industry could align behind it in a way it never managed around HEVC's licensing.
That lineage explains AVIF's two defining traits. First, compression: at comparable visual quality an AVIF photo is typically 40–50% smaller than JPEG and usually another slice smaller than WebP. Second, features: it inherited video-grade capabilities — deep colour, HDR, alpha transparency, animation — that older still formats simply lack.
What AVIF can do that JPG can't
- Smaller files, same look. The headline numbers compound fast: convert a page of hero photos and total page weight can drop by half. If your originals are oversized, Resize Image first, then convert.
- Transparency. Like PNG and WebP, AVIF carries a full alpha channel — logos and cutouts keep their transparency. JPG forces everything onto a solid background.
- HDR and deep colour. AVIF stores 10- and 12-bit colour with HDR transfer functions, which is why HDR photos on the web increasingly ship as AVIF. JPEG is stuck at 8 bits.
- Animation. One .avif file can hold an image sequence, a genuine alternative to animated GIF at a fraction of the size — though GIF remains the fallback every app opens.
- A lossless mode. Like WebP and JPEG XL, AVIF can compress without losing a pixel, though its lossless files run heavier than JPEG XL's, which remains the format to beat for archival masters.
One thing ordinary AVIF files cannot do: render progressively. A JPEG can paint in blurry-to-sharp while it loads; an ordinary single-layer AVIF either has enough data to display or it doesn't. The AVIF spec does support progressive decoding via layered images, but encoder and browser support for that is still limited. On today's connections that rarely matters, but it is a real difference under the hood.
Browser and app support — the honest picture
This is where most articles get sloppy, so here is the careful version:
- Display: solved. Chrome has decoded AVIF since version 85 (2020), Firefox since 93 (2021), Safari since 16.4 (2023), and Edge follows Chrome. Every current browser displays AVIF natively, so you can serve it to real visitors today.
- Encoding: native nowhere. This is the part the marketing omits. No browser ships a built-in AVIF encoder — the canvas API a web page uses to save a PNG or JPG cannot produce an AVIF in any of them. Creating an AVIF always needs a separate encoder: a desktop tool, a command line, or — like on this site — WebAssembly running in your tab.
- Apps: still patchy. Photo editors were slow to adopt it, phone galleries and upload forms vary, and software locked to JPG or PNG is exactly why conversion tools exist.
Internalise the asymmetry: AVIF is safe to serve, but you need an encoder to make. Our JPG to AVIF, PNG to AVIF and WebP to AVIF tools encode with the libaom encoder compiled to WebAssembly, running on your own device — no install, no upload, no queue.
AVIF vs JPG vs WebP
How the three stack up on a typical photograph:
| Format | Since | Typical size vs JPEG | Transparency | Animation | The short version |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JPG | 1992 | baseline | No | No | Opens everywhere — the format you convert to for maximum reach |
| WebP | 2010 | ~25–35% smaller | Yes | Yes | Universal in browsers and encodes fast — the safe all-rounder |
| AVIF | 2019 | ~40–50% smaller | Yes | Yes | The smallest photographic files, plus HDR and deep colour — at the cost of slow encoding |
Two honest caveats the table can't show. First, AVIF's advantage is widest when you squeeze hard; at very high quality settings the gap to WebP narrows. Second, encoding speed: WebP encodes in milliseconds while AVIF's video-codec machinery takes seconds per image — fine for a handful, noticeable across hundreds. (For the three-way fight including JPEG XL, see our AVIF vs WebP vs JPEG XL comparison; for where the newest challenger stands, the JPEG XL guide has the details.)
When to use AVIF — and when not to
Use AVIF when:
- You publish photos to the web and bandwidth is the whole game — galleries, e-commerce, hero images;
- You want HDR or 10-bit colour in a photo workflow;
- You need transparency at a size PNG can't touch — PNG to AVIF routinely shrinks graphics and screenshots dramatically;
- You control delivery, so you can rely on today's browser support.
Think twice when:
- The file is headed somewhere you don't control — an upload form, chat app or older editor where JPG is still the common tongue: run AVIF to JPG first;
- You need pixel-perfect archival masters — lossless AVIF is capable but heavy; JPEG XL does that job better;
- You are converting thousands of images in one sitting — the encoder's CPU cost is real, even on your own device.
How to convert to and from AVIF — locally and free
All 38 tools on this site run entirely in your browser: the AV1 decoder and encoder arrive as WebAssembly and load on demand, and your images never touch a server. No account, no limits, no watermark. One practical note: the codec is fetched the first time you actually run a tool, so use it once while online — after that it stays cached and keeps working offline with the tab open. The architecture is explained in our guide to no-upload local processing.
Making AVIF: JPG to AVIF, PNG to AVIF and WebP to AVIF, each with a quality slider and transparency preserved where the source has it.
Opening AVIF elsewhere: AVIF to JPG for universal sharing, AVIF to PNG for lossless output with transparency, AVIF to WebP for the fast-encoding web format, AVIF to JPEG XL for archiving, and AVIF to PDF to pull images into a document.
Related jobs that pair well: Compress JPG and Compress PNG when you must stay in the classic formats, Resize Image before converting to keep encode times down. The full set sits on the AVIF converter hub.
AVIF FAQ
Can every browser display AVIF? Every current one — Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Edge — displays still AVIF images natively, transparency included. Animated AVIF is supported in Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari (since 16.1).
If browsers display it, why do I need a converter? Display and creation are different jobs. No browser can create an AVIF natively, and many apps — editors, upload forms, galleries — still don't accept the format at all. That gap is exactly what these tools fill, and they fill it locally.
Is AVIF better than JPEG XL? They win different races: AVIF takes the aggressive web-compression crown today; JPEG XL wins on lossless, archival and encoding speed. The comparison guide breaks the whole trade-off down.
Does converting degrade quality? Decoding produces 8-bit pixels by default; 10- or 12-bit originals are downsampled to 8-bit, so deep-color precision is not fully preserved — beyond that, quality is set by the target format and its settings. Converting to AVIF is lossy at default settings, with a quality slider you control.
Try our AVIF tools on a few of your own photos: drop one into JPG to AVIF and watch the size, then back out with AVIF to JPG when something refuses to open it. Spotted an inaccuracy or want a question added to the FAQ? Tell us — we read everything.