Easily convert AVIF images to PNGs for better compatibility and high-quality transparency.
When Google, Mozilla, and Apple added AVIF support to their browsers between 2020 and 2022, the web community celebrated. Smaller images, better quality, modern features — AVIF was the future. The problem is that "browsers support it" and "my computer supports it" are very different statements.
Try opening an AVIF file in any of these applications and you'll hit a wall:
The practical result is that even though the web serves AVIF images efficiently, the moment you save one to your desktop for editing, presentation, email, or print preparation, you're stuck. Converting to PNG solves this in one step because PNG has near-universal support across every creative application, operating system, and communication platform.
These formats serve fundamentally different purposes, and understanding the technical differences helps you make informed decisions about when conversion is the right move.
AVIF is a lossy (and optionally lossless) format derived from the AV1 video codec. It uses intra-frame prediction, transform coding, and entropy encoding — techniques borrowed from video compression. A single AVIF image is essentially one frame of an AV1 video stream. This gives it extraordinary compression efficiency: an AVIF file at quality 60 often looks better than a JPEG at quality 80, while being 30-50% smaller.
PNG uses the DEFLATE compression algorithm on prediction-filtered pixel data. It's always lossless — every single pixel in the output is identical to the input. This makes PNG ideal for graphics with sharp edges, text, and transparency, but terrible for photographs. A typical 12-megapixel photograph saved as PNG might be 8-15MB, while the same image as AVIF would be 400-800KB.
When you convert AVIF to PNG, the decoder must fully decompress the AV1 bitstream, reconstruct every pixel, then re-encode using DEFLATE. The resulting file is:
The critical nuance: if your source AVIF was saved with lossy compression, the conversion to PNG doesn't magically restore the lost detail. The PNG simply preserves the lossy AVIF's pixels exactly as they are, without adding more artifacts.
Converting AVIF to PNG isn't always the best move. Here's when you should reconsider:
Scenarios where PNG makes sense:
Scenarios where you should convert to JPG instead:
If your AVIF file is a photograph and you convert it to PNG, you might end up with a 5MB file that looks identical to the 300KB original. That's a massive waste of storage and bandwidth. For photographic content without transparency, converting AVIF to JPG produces files roughly 60-70% smaller than PNG equivalents at visually identical quality.
Scenarios where you should keep AVIF:
When you use an online converter like Pixes, no file upload to a remote server occurs. Here's the technical pipeline:
Step 1 — File reading: The browser's FileReader API reads your AVIF file as an ArrayBuffer, giving the decoder raw binary access to the file contents.
Step 2 — AVIF decoding: Modern browsers (Chrome 85+, Firefox 93+, Safari 16.4+) include built-in AVIF decoders. The browser parses the AVIF container (based on HEIF/ISOBMFF), extracts the AV1 bitstream, and decodes it into raw RGBA pixel data. This is the computationally expensive step — AV1 decoding is CPU-intensive.
Step 3 — Canvas rendering: The decoded pixel data is drawn onto an HTML element. The canvas holds the uncompressed RGBA bitmap in memory.
Step 4 — PNG encoding: The canvas.toBlob('image/png') method triggers the browser's built-in PNG encoder, which applies filtering and DEFLATE compression to produce the final PNG file.
Step 5 — Download: A temporary object URL is created from the PNG blob, triggering the browser's download mechanism.
The entire pipeline runs on your machine's CPU and memory. No network transfer occurs, which means:
One of AVIF's lesser-known strengths is its robust alpha channel support. Unlike JPEG (which has no transparency) and WebP (which added it later), AVIF was designed from the ground up with 8-bit and 10-bit alpha channels. This means AVIF files can carry transparency data with the same compression efficiency as the color data.
When converting to PNG, the alpha channel transfers completely. But there are practical details worth knowing:
Premultiplied alpha: AVIF can store premultiplied alpha (where color values are pre-multiplied by the alpha value). PNG uses straight (non-premultiplied) alpha by default. The conversion process handles this automatically — your transparency will look correct without any manual adjustment.
10-bit to 8-bit truncation: AVIF supports 10-bit color depth, including in the alpha channel. PNG is limited to 8-bit per channel (or 16-bit in rare implementations). When a 10-bit AVIF converts to PNG, the extra precision is truncated. For most use cases — web graphics, UI elements, logos — this difference is invisible. For scientific imaging or HDR workflows, be aware of the precision loss.
Semi-transparent edges: If your AVIF contains semi-transparent pixels (common in anti-aliased logos and drop shadows), these convert perfectly to PNG. The 256 alpha levels in PNG (0-255) map directly from the decoded AVIF data. You won't see banding, halos, or edge artifacts that plague some format conversions.
This transparency preservation is the primary reason designers and developers specifically seek out AVIF to transparent PNG conversion rather than converting to JPG, which would fill all transparent areas with solid white or black.
Browser support for AVIF is strong but not universal, which creates a fragmented experience:
Outside browsers, the picture is worse. WhatsApp, Telegram (desktop), Slack, Discord (on some platforms), and most CMS admin panels either don't render AVIF previews or handle them inconsistently. If you're sending an image via email, posting it in a work chat, or uploading it to a platform that processes images server-side, AVIF may silently fail or display as a blank placeholder.
PNG, by contrast, has worked everywhere since 1996. There is not a single platform, application, or device in active use today that cannot display a PNG file. This universal compatibility is the core reason conversion remains necessary even as AVIF browser support matures.