HEIC, AVIF, WebP or JPG: which image format to use in 2026
Ten years ago the choice was JPG or PNG. Today your phone saves HEIC, websites serve AVIF and WebP, and the file you download is often something your other software refuses to open. None of these formats is a mistake — each exists because it stores the same picture in far fewer bytes — but they arrived faster than the tools around them. This guide explains what each format is for, where it breaks, and a two-question rule for choosing.
HEIC: the phone camera format
HEIC (High Efficiency Image Container, technically HEIF with HEVC-compressed pictures) is what iPhones have saved photos as since 2017 and what many Android phones offer as an option. At the same visual quality a HEIC is roughly half the size of a JPG, and the container can hold extra data: depth maps for portrait mode, the short video of a Live Photo, bursts and edits.
Where it breaks: Windows needs the HEIF and HEVC extensions to display it; many email clients, upload forms, print services and content management systems reject it outright; some older Android devices cannot open one at all. Because the phone itself converts to JPG when you share through most apps, people often do not notice until they copy files over a cable or download them from cloud storage.
What to do: keep the HEIC as your original — it is the best-quality, smallest master you have — and convert a copy to JPG whenever a destination might not understand it. Toolkitta’s converter, compressor and cropper all open HEIC directly and write JPG (or PNG when there is transparency).
AVIF: the newest web format
AVIF is derived from the AV1 video codec and is the most efficient common image format today: typically 30–50% smaller than JPG and 15–25% smaller than WebP at matching quality, with support for transparency, HDR and wide colour. Every current browser opens it, so sites increasingly serve it, and it is what you get when you save an image from them.
Where it breaks: outside browsers. Older desktop image viewers, most email clients, many upload forms and quite a lot of design software still do not accept AVIF. Encoding is also slow — several seconds for a large photo — which is fine for a website’s build step and annoying for a batch of holiday photos.
What to do: use AVIF for images on a website you control, ideally with a fallback, and convert to JPG or PNG before sending a file to anyone else.
WebP: the safe modern default for the web
WebP is older than AVIF, slightly less efficient — around 25–35% smaller than JPG — and much more widely accepted: all browsers, most CMSs, many desktop tools and social platforms. It offers lossy and lossless modes and transparency, which makes it a good replacement for both JPG photos and PNG graphics on a web page.
Where it breaks: some email clients and older software, and a few upload forms that only list JPG and PNG. If the file will be downloaded and opened by someone in software you do not know, provide a JPG or PNG.
JPG and PNG: still the formats that open everywhere
JPG remains the universal photo format and PNG the universal lossless graphic format. Their weakness is size: a JPG is larger than the same picture as WebP or AVIF, and a PNG photo is enormous. Their strength is that nothing on earth refuses them. For anything you hand to another person, a form, a printer or an unknown program, they are still the right answer.
The two-question rule
- Who will open it? If it is a website you control, use WebP (or AVIF with a WebP or JPG fallback). If it is a person, a form, an email or a printer, use JPG for photos and PNG for graphics with transparency or sharp text.
- Will you edit it again? Keep a lossless or original master (HEIC from the camera, PNG for graphics, the original RAW if you have one) and convert copies from that, so each conversion starts from the best source rather than from a previous lossy copy.
A practical workflow: leave the originals as they are, convert to JPG or PNG when sharing, and convert to WebP when publishing. If size limits apply, run the converted file through the compressor with a target.
What conversion does and does not change
- Quality: converting between lossy formats (HEIC → JPG, AVIF → WebP) re-encodes the picture and costs a small amount of detail each time; keep quality at 80 or above and always convert from the original.
- Transparency: JPG has none. Converting a transparent PNG, WebP, AVIF or HEIC to JPG fills the transparent areas with a background colour.
- Metadata: Toolkitta rebuilds converted files from pixels, so camera settings and GPS location are removed. That is often what you want when sharing, and something to remember when archiving.
- Animation: only the first frame of an animated GIF, WebP or AVIF is converted.
- Orientation: phone photos store a rotation tag; the converter applies it, so the result displays upright everywhere.