How to convert JPG to PNG
- Drop your JPG files into the box above, or click to browse. You can also paste with Ctrl+V.
- Adjust quality or resizing under Conversion settings if you need to. The defaults suit most photos.
- Conversion starts automatically and runs on your device — watch the progress bar for each file.
- Download files individually, or grab everything as a ZIP.
What changes when you convert JPG to PNG
The most important thing to understand about this conversion is what it does not do. Converting a JPG to PNG does not improve the image. It cannot. The detail JPEG discarded when the file was created is gone, and no lossless format can bring it back — a PNG made from a JPG is a perfect copy of an imperfect image.
If your JPEG has visible block artefacts in the sky, the PNG will have exactly the same artefacts, stored with perfect fidelity, in a file ten times larger. This surprises people often enough to be worth stating plainly: PNG is lossless going forward, not backwards.
What the conversion genuinely gives you is a stable working format. Every time you open a JPEG, edit it and save, it is compressed again and the damage accumulates. Convert once to PNG and you can edit and resave indefinitely with no further degradation. For anything that will go through several rounds of work, that is the right move — do it at the start, not at the end.
The second real reason is transparency. JPEG has no alpha channel at all, so if you need to cut out a background, round the corners, or place the image over something else, you need a format that can store transparency. PNG gains an alpha channel in this conversion; it is fully opaque to begin with, and becomes useful the moment you erase something.
The cost is size, and on photographs it is steep. PNG stores every pixel exactly, including sensor noise, which is close to incompressible. A 0.9 MB photographic JPEG typically becomes an 11 MB PNG. Flat content behaves completely differently — a screenshot that someone unwisely saved as JPEG will often become a *smaller* PNG, because large areas of identical colour are what PNG compresses best.
What is preserved
- Every pixel the JPEG decoded to, stored exactly — PNG adds no loss of its own
- Pixel dimensions and applied orientation
What is lost
- EXIF metadata in practice: PNG support for it is late and inconsistently read
- Nothing else — but nothing is recovered either
What is altered
- File size grows substantially, typically three to ten times on a photograph
- The image gains an alpha channel, fully opaque until you edit it
PNG support in browsers and operating systems
Checked on 2026-08-10. We re-verify this table every quarter.
| Platform | Support |
|---|---|
| Chrome | all versions |
| Safari | all versions |
| Firefox | all versions |
| Edge | all versions |
| iOS | all versions |
| Android | all versions |
| Windows | all versions since 98 |
| macOS | all versions |
When not to convert JPG to PNG
Do not convert hoping to improve quality or remove artefacts. Nothing is recovered; you get a much larger file containing exactly the same flaws.
Do not convert photographs for the web. A photographic PNG is many times larger than the JPEG it came from, and every browser reads JPEG. If you want smaller and better, convert to WebP or AVIF instead.
Do not convert for archiving unless you accept losing the EXIF. PNG's metadata support arrived late and is read inconsistently, so camera settings, dates and GPS generally do not survive. Keep the original JPEG alongside if that information matters.
Do not convert an already-optimised JPEG just to store it. If the file will not be edited, the conversion costs storage and gains nothing.
Frequently asked questions
Does converting JPG to PNG improve the quality?
No. PNG is lossless, which means it preserves exactly what it is given — including every artefact the JPEG already had. Detail discarded during JPEG compression is gone permanently. You get a larger file containing the same image, not a better one.
Why is the PNG ten times bigger?
Because PNG stores every pixel exactly while JPEG discards what the eye is unlikely to notice. On a photograph that difference is most of the file, and sensor noise — which JPEG throws away cheaply — is close to incompressible losslessly. Flat graphics behave very differently and often shrink.
Will the PNG have a transparent background?
It gains an alpha channel, but it starts fully opaque — there is no transparency in a JPEG to carry across. What the conversion gives you is the ability to create transparency afterwards: erase a background, round the corners, or composite the image over something else.
When is this conversion actually worth doing?
Two cases. Before a round of editing, so repeated saves stop degrading the image — every JPEG save re-compresses, and the damage accumulates. And when you need transparency, which JPEG cannot store at all. Outside those, it usually costs storage for nothing.
Is the EXIF data kept?
Generally not. PNG only gained EXIF support in version 1.5 and software reads it inconsistently, so camera model, capture date and GPS are effectively dropped. If you are publishing the image that is a privacy benefit; if you are archiving it, keep the original JPEG too.