Converts JPG to PNG. Worth being straight about what this achieves: PNG will store the pixels perfectly from now on, but it cannot recover anything the JPEG already threw away.
What converting to PNG does not do
You will usually end up with a considerably larger file containing exactly the same visible image. For a photograph, five to ten times larger is normal, because PNG has to encode JPEG's blocking and ringing as if it were real detail.
When it is genuinely the right move
You are about to edit it repeatedly. Every JPEG save loses a little more. Converting once to PNG and working there stops the decay, even though the first generation of loss is already baked in.
Something requires PNG. Plenty of tools, print workflows and upload forms simply do.
You need to add transparency. You cannot recover a background that was never separate, but you can now erase one and have the result stay transparent.
You want the metadata gone. The re-encode strips EXIF and GPS.
Metadata is removed, which is usually the point
For a photo you are about to publish this is a feature. A JPEG straight off a phone can carry the exact coordinates of where it was taken, and stripping that before it goes anywhere public is good practice — the conversion does it as a side effect.
The one piece of metadata that is honoured before being dropped is the orientation flag. Phones store photos in the sensor's native orientation with a tag saying which way is up; ignoring it produces sideways pictures. It is applied to the pixels, so the result is upright without needing the tag.
If you need the EXIF preserved, this is the wrong tool — a converter that re-encodes cannot keep it.
Other names for this
Also searched as “jpeg to png”, “convert jpg to png”, “jpg to transparent png”.
Questions
- Will this improve the image quality?
- No. JPEG loss is permanent. PNG preserves the pixels it is given, artefacts and all.
- Why is the PNG so much bigger?
- PNG is lossless, so it must encode JPEG’s compression artefacts exactly as if they were detail. Five to ten times larger is normal for a photograph.
- Will it have a transparent background?
- No — a JPEG has no transparency to recover. PNG can hold transparency you add afterwards in an editor.
- Can I convert a whole folder of images?
- Yes. Drop as many files as you like, or a whole folder. Each keeps its original name with the new extension —
IMG_4032.heicbecomesIMG_4032.jpg, neverconverted_1.jpg— and you can download them individually or as a ZIP. - Are my photos uploaded?
- No. The decoding and re-encoding happen in this tab using the browser’s own image support. Photos are personal in a way most files are not, and none of them is transmitted. Turn your Wi-Fi off and the converter keeps working.
- How large an image can I convert?
- The practical ceiling is the browser’s canvas limit, about 268 million pixels in total area — roughly 16,000 × 16,000. Above that you get a clear error rather than a silent failure, and resizing first is the fix. File size itself is limited only by your device’s memory.