PNG is a wonderful format in the wrong place. Screenshots, logos and diagrams belong in PNG — but somewhere along the way, cameras' photos end up saved as PNG too, and a photo stored as PNG is routinely five to ten times larger than it needs to be. Converting those files to JPG (or better, WebP) is the single fastest storage win most people can make. Here's how to do it right.
How to convert (30 seconds, no installs)
- Open a browser-based converter — the tool on this site converts locally, so private photos never leave your device.
- Drop in your PNG files (up to 20 at once).
- Select JPEG as the output format and set quality to 80.
- Download individually or as a ZIP. Done — each photo typically shrinks 85–95%.
What happens to transparency
JPEG has no concept of transparency. When you convert a PNG with a transparent background, the transparent areas must become some color — most converters (including ours) flatten onto white. If your logo needs to sit on a dark website background, a white box will suddenly appear around it. That's not a bug in the conversion; it's the format.
Need smaller files and transparency? Convert to WebP instead of JPEG. WebP supports full transparency and still compresses far better than PNG.
When you shouldn't convert
- Screenshots with text. JPEG's compression smears sharp letter edges into visible halos. Keep interface screenshots and text-heavy graphics as PNG (or lossless WebP).
- Logos, icons and diagrams. Same reason — hard edges and flat colors are exactly what JPEG handles worst and PNG handles best. A flat-color logo is often smaller as PNG than as JPEG anyway.
- Anything you'll keep editing. Every JPEG re-save loses a little more quality. Keep working files lossless; convert only the final copy you publish or send.
- Archival masters. If the PNG is your only original, keep it. Convert a copy.
Quality setting cheat sheet
- Web pages and blogs: quality 75–80.
- Email and messaging: quality 70 — recipients view on small screens.
- Printing: quality 90+, and don't resize down.
When in doubt, convert at 80 and use a before/after comparison at full size. For photographic content, you almost certainly won't spot the difference — and the file will be a tenth of the size.
Batch-converting a whole folder
Got years of accidentally-PNG photos? Work in batches of 20: drop them in, convert to JPEG at quality 80, download the ZIP, and replace the originals once you've spot-checked a few. A 2 GB folder of PNG photos typically lands around 200–300 MB — same photos, same screens, 90% less disk.
Compress your images now
Ready to put this into practice? Use the free WebPcompress compressor — it runs entirely in your browser, handles 20 images at a time, and your photos never leave your device.