Chrome hands you a WebP. A site serves AVIF. The iPhone still is HEIC. A screenshot is a fat PNG. The form wants a JPEG, or one PDF. The usual “drop your image” site now has the original — GPS and all.
You do not need a server to change the container. The browser can decode the pixels and write a new file.
What conversion actually does
A photo file is pixels plus a box. Conversion is a new box. Compression is a smaller picture. They get sold as the same job. They are not.
- Pixel count can stay the same. That is the point of a converter.
- JPEG and WebP throw away a little detail. That is how those formats work.
- PNG is lossless. It is usually larger than HEIC or JPEG.
- A canvas re-encode does not copy EXIF. GPS, camera model, and timestamps do not ride along.
- The original on disk stays put. You download a new object.
If the file is also too fat for email, that is compression, after or instead.
Pick the door you typed
The convert images hub is the index. Each door only accepts what it says on the tin:
- WebP to JPG — Chrome downloads and Discord saves
- WebP to PNG — same save, but the form wants holes kept
- PNG to JPG — screenshots that should be email-sized. Transparency becomes white
- AVIF to JPG — the new small format most mail clients still bounce
- HEIC to JPG — the iPhone default
- HEIC to PNG — lossless, usually larger
- HEIC to PDF — one document, one page per still
- JPG to WebP — smaller for a site that can open it
- Images to PDF — mixed JPG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, HEIC
- PDF to JPG — each page becomes a JPEG. Not OCR
- PDF to PNG — same job, lossless pages
Every page runs in this tab. Drop a pile. Zip when more than one is done. PDF doors stack pages in drop order — first file is page 1. A lease or an ID: is it safe to convert a PDF online.
Do it in this tab
- Open the matching converter, or start at the hub.
- Drop the files. Paste works too.
- Download the new files, the zip, or the PDF.
- Close the tab. The working copies are gone from memory.
AVIF needs a browser that can paint it (Chrome, Firefox, current Safari). If it cannot, the file is not sent somewhere else that can. We just say so.
Check the result
Open the download on the computer or form that hated the original. It should just be a picture, or one PDF.
If you care about location, drop the new file on Photo Location. There should be no pin. The original may still have one — that is why the convert happens locally.
JPEG vs WebP when you do want it smaller: which format actually shrinks. iPhone stills specifically: convert HEIC without uploading.