PNG to JPG: shrink the file without losing the picture

Most people ask for "PNG to JPG" for one reason: the PNG file is too big. A screenshot, a scanned page or a photo saved as PNG stores every pixel exactly, so it can easily be five or ten times the size of the same picture as a JPG. The conversion is free and works in the browser — but PNG can hold something JPG cannot, transparency, so it is worth knowing what happens to it first.

What the conversion actually does

PNG is lossless: it keeps every pixel exactly as it was. JPG is lossy: it throws away detail the eye is not meant to notice, in exchange for a much smaller file. For a photograph, that trade is usually worth it — the loss is hard to see, and the file can drop to a fraction of its PNG size. For a screenshot or a diagram with flat colours and sharp text, JPG's way of compressing (by colour blocks) can introduce fuzzy haloes around hard edges, so the saving is smaller and the loss is more visible.

The one thing JPG cannot keep: transparency

If the PNG has a transparent background — a logo, an icon, a sticker cut out of a photo — converting to JPG has to decide what goes where the transparency was, because JPG has no transparent pixels at all. The usual choice is to fill it with a solid colour, white by default. If the picture is meant to sit on a white page that is invisible; if it was meant to sit on a dark background or on top of another image, a white (or black) box will suddenly appear around it. Check the result before using it anywhere the background colour matters.

When PNG to JPG is the right move

• The file is too big to send or upload. Email attachments, upload limits and page-weight budgets all favour JPG for photos.
• The picture is a photograph, or a photo-like screenshot. JPG was built for exactly this kind of continuous-tone image.
• A form or a tool only accepts JPG. Some upload fields check the extension and reject PNG outright.
• The PNG has no transparency to begin with. Then nothing about the look of the image changes, only the file size.

When to keep it as PNG instead

If the PNG is a logo, an icon, a screenshot of text, or anything with flat colours and sharp edges, PNG usually compresses it almost as small as JPG would — and keeps the edges crisp, with no fuzzy halo. If it needs a transparent background for a watermark, a sticker, or layering over other content, converting to JPG removes that ability for good. In both cases, converting back and forth buys nothing; the file was already a reasonable size, or the transparency was the point.

How to convert here

1. Open Convert image format, choose the PNG, or drop it on the page. Several files at once work too.
2. Set Convert to to JPG. A quality slider and a background colour appear — the background only matters if the PNG has transparent areas.
3. Pick a quality around 80–90% for most photos; lower shrinks the file further but can show blocky artefacts. Pick a background colour that matches where the picture will sit (white is usually right for a page).
4. Download the result, or take the batch as one ZIP. The before-and-after size is shown for each file.

Nothing is uploaded and there is no account. If the JPG still needs to be smaller, compress it further or fit it under an exact KB limit for a form.

What else changes

If the PNG carries metadata and you want it gone without re-encoding the picture at all, Remove EXIF strips it without touching a single pixel. If the goal is a specific pixel size rather than a specific file size, Resize is often the bigger win, since fewer pixels means a smaller file in either format.

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