JPG to PNG converter

First, what a PNG will not do

Most people who search for a JPG to PNG converter want one of two things. Some need a PNG because a form, an app or a print shop asks for one. Others want a picture without a background, a logo or a product they can put on a coloured slide. The first job is a format change, and this page does it. The second is not: a JPG cannot hold transparency, so whatever sits behind the subject in the JPG is still there, pixel for pixel, in the PNG. Changing the extension does not change the picture.

If a transparent background is what you are after, convert here and click Remove background on the file, or go straight to the transparent background maker. Either way the result is a PNG with a real transparent background at full size. What a transparent background is explains why the format alone is not enough.

How to convert JPG to PNG

1. Drop the JPG files on this page, choose them, or paste a copied image. Files ending in .jpg, .jpeg or .jfif all work, several at once.
2. Wait a moment. The files are converted one after another inside your browser; a large photo takes about a second.
3. Save. Click Save PNG next to a file, or Save all to get them together in one ZIP. Each PNG keeps the name of the original with the new extension.

JPG or JPEG?

They are the same format. JPEG is the name of the committee that wrote the standard, and .jpg is the same name cut down for MS-DOS and early Windows, which allowed only three letters after the dot. A .jfif file is the same thing again under a third extension. getSVG has a short explainer on JPEG vs JPG, and what a JFIF file is covers the odd one.

What changes, and what does not

The picture does not get better. JPG compression throws fine detail away when the photo is saved, and the blocky smudges around text and sharp edges are part of the pixels from then on. PNG is lossless, so it keeps exactly what the JPG decoded to, smudges included, at the same width and height. What it does guarantee is that no further loss happens: a JPG loses a little more each time it is edited and saved again as JPG, and a PNG does not.

The file gets bigger, often several times over for a photograph, because PNG stores every pixel exactly and has no way to round off detail the eye would miss. Metadata is left behind: camera details, dates and GPS location stored in the JPG are not copied into the PNG. A photo that the camera marked as rotated is saved the right way up, because the rotation is applied to the pixels.

When PNG is the right choice, and when it is pointless

• Worth it: a picture you will edit and save several more times, where every JPG save would add loss.
• Worth it: an upload form, a template or an app that only accepts PNG.
• Worth it: the first step towards a transparent cutout, which has to end up as PNG (or WebP) anyway.
• Pointless: a holiday photo you only want to share or store. The PNG looks the same and takes several times the space.
• Pointless: trying to rescue a blurry or heavily compressed JPG. The detail is already gone.

Screenshots and graphics with text are best saved as PNG in the first place, before they ever become a JPG. If you have a PNG and need a small JPG for sharing, PNG to JPG does the opposite, and HEIC vs JPG vs PNG compares the formats on size and compatibility.

Converting without uploading

Nearly every other JPG to PNG converter in the search results uploads your photos to a server, converts them there and keeps them for a while, on a promise you have to take on trust. This page uses the image decoder and encoder that are already built into your browser, so the photos are converted inside this tab and nothing is sent to getPNG or anyone else. That matters for scans of documents, pictures of your children and product shots before a launch. Load the page, switch off Wi-Fi, and it still works.