My PNG came out much bigger than the AVIF — did I do something wrong?

No, this is an entirely expected result. AVIF is a lossy format that shrinks by discarding information the eye does not notice; PNG is a lossless format that discards nothing. Because there is very little for lossless compression to gain on photographic content, PNG files come out several times larger. This is not an error but a direct consequence of the difference in how the two formats work. If size is critical for you, your target should be JPG rather than PNG.

Is the transparent background preserved?

Yes, PNG fully supports the alpha channel, and transparent or semi-transparent areas in your AVIF are preserved exactly as they are during conversion. This is the strongest reason to prefer PNG for this conversion. Had you converted the same image to JPG, the transparent regions would have been filled with a solid colour, usually white. For logos, icons and product images with the background removed, PNG is in practice the only correct target.

Does converting to PNG clean up AVIF's compression traces?

No, it does not. PNG being lossless means it adds no new degradation, not that it repairs existing degradation. If the AVIF was saved in lossy mode, the detail it discarded is no longer in the file, and PNG faithfully stores the pixels it encounters in their current state. So existing artefacts are preserved as they are. PNG's real benefit is that you will not accumulate new generations of loss as you edit and re-save the file from here on.

Can I convert many AVIF files to PNG in a batch?

Yes, you can upload multiple files at once and convert them in a batch. Before running a batch, though, we suggest thinking about the total size; in a photo-heavy folder the PNG outputs can take up a great deal of space and fill your storage quickly. If your collection mixes transparent graphics with photographs, sending the ones that need transparency to PNG and the rest to JPG is a far more efficient strategy.

How Do You Convert an AVIF File to PNG?

Why are you choosing PNG as your target?

There are two common reasons to convert an AVIF file: either the file will not open somewhere, or you need to work with the image. PNG sits at the intersection of both needs.

PNG's advantage over AVIF is not efficiency — AVIF is far ahead on that front. What PNG offers is two concrete guarantees: it opens everywhere and it preserves transparency. When those two come together, PNG does a job JPG cannot.

In this guide we explain how to perform the conversion and why the result arrives at a file size different from the one you expected.

What exactly happens during the conversion?

Your AVIF was most likely saved in lossy mode. That is, the image has been through a compression process and some of the information the eye does not notice has been discarded.

PNG is lossless. During conversion the AVIF is decoded and the resulting pixels are written into the PNG without any information being discarded.

This has two consequences and you need to know both:

The good news: From this point on you can open and close the file as many times as you like, edit it and re-save it. No new generation of compression is added, and degradation does not accumulate.

The honest news: The detail AVIF discarded earlier does not come back. PNG being lossless means it faithfully stores the image it encounters — existing compression artefacts included. If you convert a blurry AVIF to PNG, you end up with a blurry PNG; it just will not get any blurrier.

Step-by-step conversion

1. Check whether the image has transparency

If this is your main reason for choosing PNG, it is worth verifying. Drag the AVIF into a current browser and open it; transparent areas are usually shown against a white or chequered background. If you are unsure, a simple test placing the file on a dark background will tell you.

If there is no transparency and the content is photographic, it may make sense to consider JPG instead of PNG — the file will be much smaller.

2. Upload the file

Drag and drop your file onto our AVIF to PNG conversion tool. You can process multiple files at the same time.

3. Account for the increase in size

There is no "quality" slider to adjust here, because PNG is lossless — the quality is whatever the source was. Having nothing to adjust makes the job easier, but it brings a surprise with it: the file gets much bigger.

It is normal for the PNG equivalent of a photographic AVIF to be several times larger. The reason is simple: PNG works by packing repeating patterns losslessly, and a photograph contains almost no repeating patterns. By contrast, PNG behaves quite efficiently with a logo or screenshot containing flat colour areas.

4. Test the result where you will actually use it

Try the PNG you downloaded at its destination: open it in your design program, place it in the presentation, upload it to the dashboard. If you are expecting transparency, put the image on a dark background and confirm that it really is transparent.

The content PNG handles best

PNG is not the right target for every AVIF. You get the best results with content like this:

Logos and icons with transparent backgrounds. The alpha channel is preserved and the file size stays reasonable, because these images usually contain a limited number of flat colours.
Screenshots and interface imagery. Sharp edges and text stay crisp in a lossless format. JPG produces ringing around letter edges in this kind of content.
Diagrams, drawings, charts and infographics. Flat colour areas suit PNG's compression very well.
Intermediate files you will be editing. Losslessness is critical for a working file you will save multiple times.

By contrast, for high-resolution photographs that do not need transparency, PNG is usually an unnecessarily large solution.

Three common situations

"I put the PNG on my website and the page got slower." An expected outcome. If you are putting photographs on the web, PNG is not the right tool; save PNG for graphics and elements that need transparency.

"The transparency disappeared." This is usually the result of something done afterwards rather than the conversion itself — for example opening the PNG in a program and re-saving it as JPG. Check the chain from start to finish.

"I can't send the file by email." The PNG may have exceeded the size limit. If you do not need transparency, produce a JPG copy from the same original AVIF; going back to the source is cleaner than trying to shrink the PNG by converting it to JPG.

In summary

Converting AVIF to PNG means putting a lossy file into a lossless container. That gains you two things: transparency is preserved, and loss does not accumulate through subsequent edits. What it does not gain you is quality — lost detail does not come back and existing artefacts stay exactly as they are. In exchange, the file grows noticeably. If transparency or sharp-edged content is involved, the trade is definitely worth it; if it is an ordinary photograph, consider JPG.