PNG is a lossless format, which is exactly why a photograph saved as PNG is often needlessly large — it is storing every pixel exactly, including all the subtle tonal variation a photo naturally has, none of which PNG is built to compress efficiently. Converting a photographic PNG to JPG is frequently the single biggest, easiest size reduction available, often shrinking the file by 70–90% with no visible difference.
Upload the file to PNG to JPG and download the smaller result.
How this happens in the first place
PNG becomes the default for a photo more often than you would expect: a phone screenshot of a photo, an image saved from a design tool that defaults to PNG, a photo pasted into a document and then re-exported. None of these are wrong choices in the moment, but if the end result is a photographic image saved as PNG, it is almost always carrying far more file size than the same image would need as a JPG.
Steps
- Upload the PNG to PNG to JPG.
- Download the JPG result and compare the file size to the original — the difference is often dramatic.
- If it still needs to be smaller for a specific limit, compress it further with the Image Compressor.
When to keep it as PNG instead
- The image has a transparent background you need to keep — JPG does not support transparency, so converting would fill it with a solid colour.
- It is a screenshot, diagram or graphic with sharp text or hard edges, where JPG’s compression can introduce visible fuzzing.
- You plan to keep editing the file and want to avoid the small quality loss each JPG save introduces.
For a genuine photograph with a solid background and no further editing planned, none of these apply, and converting to JPG is the clear choice.
How much smaller to expect
The reduction varies with content, but as a rough guide: a typical photo saved as PNG that is, say, 4–6 MB often converts to a JPG of 500 KB–1.5 MB at a quality setting with no visible loss, and smaller still if you compress further afterwards. Screenshots and simpler images shrink by a smaller but still meaningful margin, since they have less of the continuous tonal detail that JPG is specifically good at compressing.
Batches of PNG photos
If you have a folder of photos that ended up as PNG — commonly from a specific app or workflow that defaults to it — converting the whole batch to JPG in one pass, rather than picking through them individually, is the fastest way to reclaim the wasted space. This is especially worth doing before uploading a large set to a website or sending them as email attachments.
Frequently asked questions
Will I lose any visible quality converting PNG to JPG?
At a reasonable quality setting, generally no visible loss for a typical photograph. Very high JPG compression can introduce visible artefacts, but a moderate setting is indistinguishable from the PNG at normal viewing size.
What happens to transparency if the PNG has it?
JPG does not support transparency, so any transparent areas are filled with a solid background colour (usually white) during conversion.
Can I convert back to PNG afterwards if I need to?
Yes, though converting JPG back to PNG does not restore any detail lost during the JPG compression — it just stores the already-compressed result losslessly from that point on.
Is there a downside to always using JPG for photos?
Only if you plan to edit the file many times, where the small repeated quality loss can add up, or if you specifically need transparency.
Is the tool free and private?
Yes. No sign-up, no watermark, and files are removed from the server automatically about an hour after processing.