When a PNG should become a JPG
PNG is lossless, which is ideal for logos, diagrams and screenshots but wasteful for photographs. A phone picture exported as PNG, a scanned print or a render saved from a design app can weigh ten or twenty megabytes, far above what email attachments, job portals and marketplace listings allow.
JPG was built for photographic images. It discards detail the eye barely notices and keeps the rest, so the same photo usually becomes a small fraction of the size with no visible change on screen. Converting PNG to JPG is the fix when a file is simply too heavy to send.
How much smaller the JPG gets
The saving depends on what the picture shows. Photographs with gradual tones and fine texture often shrink to a tenth of their PNG size or less at 85 to 90 percent quality. Illustrations with large flat areas shrink less, because PNG already compresses flat color efficiently.
Each file in the list shows its size before and after, and the summary line totals the batch, so you can see the effect of a quality change immediately. Lower the slider and apply the new settings until the files fit your limit.
Screenshots and text: when to keep the PNG
JPEG compression struggles with sharp edges on flat backgrounds. Converting a screenshot full of text, an interface mock-up or a chart can leave faint speckles and halos around letters and lines. At 95 percent quality the effect is small, but a PNG will always be crisper for this kind of image.
A practical rule: convert photos, keep graphics. If a screenshot must become a JPG for an upload form, raise the quality before converting and check the text at full size afterwards.
Transparent PNGs and the background color
Many PNGs have transparent areas, such as a logo on a clear background or a product cut-out. JPG cannot store transparency, so the converter paints those areas with the fill color you pick before writing the file. White is the default because most documents and listing pages are white.
If the image will sit on a colored slide or website, choose that color instead so the edges blend in. Keep the original PNG if you might need the transparent version again, since a JPG cannot be turned back into one.
Where oversized PNG files come from
iPhone screenshots are saved as PNG, so a screenshot of a photo becomes a large lossless file. Canva and many other design tools also export PNG by default, clipboard pastes are often stored as PNG, and game captures and screen recordings export frames the same way.
None of these files are wrong, but when the content is photographic they carry far more data than they need. Converting them to JPG before sharing or archiving saves space without changing how they look.
Converting PNG to JPG for websites
Page speed depends heavily on image weight. A photograph saved as PNG can dominate the load time of a page, while the same picture as a JPG loads in a fraction of the time. Use JPG for photos and keep PNG for logos, icons and graphics with sharp edges.
Size the pixels for the layout as well. A picture displayed 1,200 pixels wide rarely needs to be much wider than that, even on high-density screens, and many site builders and image services create modern formats such as WebP automatically from the JPG you upload.
When the JPG looks worse than the PNG
Two signs tell you the quality is too low: ringing, a faint ripple around sharp edges and text, and banding, visible steps in smooth gradients such as a sunset. Raise the slider and apply the new settings until both disappear at full size.
If they persist even at 95 percent, the image is better off staying a PNG. That usually happens with charts, interface screenshots and illustrations made of flat color.
Converting PNG to JPG in batches
Select a whole folder of PNGs, up to 100 at a time, and drop them onto the tool. Each image is decoded and encoded by your browser, and the list fills in as files finish. Names stay the same apart from the new .jpg extension, and duplicates receive a number so none is overwritten inside the ZIP.
Nothing is uploaded, which makes the converter suitable for private documents and client work, and there is no daily cap on how many batches you run.
Keep the originals until you have checked
Converting PNG to JPG is a one-way step: the JPG cannot be turned back into the lossless original. Keep the PNG files in an archive folder until you have looked through the converted set and confirmed that every image reads well at full size.
Once you are happy, the savings can be large. A folder of photo exports that took several gigabytes as PNG often fits in a few hundred megabytes as JPG, which makes backups, cloud sync and sharing noticeably faster.
Color depth, profiles and metadata
Some PNGs store 16 bits per color channel, common in exports from raw editors and scientific tools. JPG holds 8 bits per channel, so those images are reduced to standard color, which is invisible for everyday viewing but worth knowing for professional retouching.
Colors are written in sRGB, the space almost every viewer expects. Text notes embedded in the PNG, such as the software name or creation time, are not carried into the JPG.
Picking a quality for PNG to JPG
For photos you intend to print or edit later, 90 to 95 percent keeps the most detail. For sharing online, 80 to 88 percent strikes a good balance between size and sharpness. Because a PNG source has never been lossy, the first JPG made from it is the cleanest copy you can get, so it is worth choosing the quality with care.