How to convert JPG to PNG online

Converting JPG to PNG is one of the most-searched image tasks there is, and one of the least explained. The mechanics take seconds. What nobody mentions is that the conversion does not improve the image, and usually makes the file several times larger.

That is not a reason to avoid it — there are solid reasons to want a PNG — but it is a reason to know which one applies to you.

Convert JPG to PNG in five steps

1. 1Open the Image ConverterImage Converter runs in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.
2. 2Add your filesDrag them in, paste from the clipboard or click to browse. One image or a whole folder.
3. 3Set the output format to PNGThe list only offers formats your browser can genuinely encode, so there are no dead ends.
4. 4Ignore the quality sliderPNG is lossless, so there is nothing to trade away. The control has no effect on a PNG export.
5. 5DownloadA single file downloads directly; several come back as a ZIP.

When converting to PNG is the right call

There are four situations where it genuinely helps:

• Something downstream demands PNG. Print shops, favicon pipelines, app-icon requirements, some CMS uploaders and plenty of internal tools accept nothing else. This is the most common reason, and it is a perfectly good one.
• You are about to add transparency. JPEG cannot hold an alpha channel, so a cutout has to be saved as PNG — see making an image background transparent.
• You are going to edit it repeatedly. Every JPEG save re-encodes and degrades the image. Converting once to PNG and working from that stops the losses compounding across a long editing session.
• The image is a screenshot or a graphic. If it was saved as JPEG by mistake, PNG will preserve what is left of it and prevent further damage — though it will not undo what already happened.

When it is a bad idea

Converting a photograph to PNG for a website is a reliable way to make a page slower for no visual gain. The PNG is bigger, looks identical, and loads more slowly on a phone.

If the aim was a better-looking image, the fix is to find the original file, not to change the container.

Why the PNG is larger than the JPG

Lossless compression has to describe every pixel exactly. A photograph contains millions of slightly different values, and there is a limit to how compactly that can be written down. JPEG sidesteps the problem by deciding some of those differences do not matter.

So a photographic JPEG converted to PNG typically grows several times over. A screenshot behaves differently: large runs of identical colour compress very efficiently, so the PNG can be smaller than the JPEG and sharper. The picture, not the format, decides which case you are in.

If size matters after the conversion, do not go back to JPEG — use WebP. It is lossless when you need it, lossy when you do not, keeps transparency, and works in every current browser.

Going the other way: PNG to JPG

The reverse conversion has one trap. JPEG has no transparency, so transparent pixels must be painted onto something. Most converters silently pick white, which is why a logo can come back with a white rectangle behind it.

The Image Converter lets you set that background colour before converting, so it can match the page or document the image is going into. If the destination is dark, choose the dark colour rather than fixing it afterwards.

Converting a folder at once

The converter accepts multiple files and applies the same settings to all of them, returning a ZIP. If the images also need resizing, compressing or watermarking, use Batch Image Tools instead — it runs the whole chain in a single pass rather than re-encoding the file once per tool.