Convert PNG to JPG
Usually done to make a file smaller, and usually it works — a screenshot-heavy PNG can drop dramatically. The one thing to watch is transparency, which JPG cannot store at all.
Drag & drop PNG files here
or — you can paste too
HEIC, HEIF, JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF, BMP · up to 40 images
PNG is lossless — quality affects JPG and WebP only.
Transparency is the thing that catches people out
PNG supports an alpha channel: every pixel can be fully opaque, fully transparent, or anywhere in between. JPG has no such concept. Every pixel in a JPG is solid.
So when a transparent PNG becomes a JPG, the transparent areas must be filled with something. The naive implementation — which is what you get from a plain canvas conversion, and what a surprising number of online converters ship — fills them with black, because an empty canvas is transparent black and the colour survives even when the transparency does not.
The result is a logo that looked fine on your website arriving as white text on a harsh black rectangle. This converter fills transparent areas with white instead, which is what people almost always expect and what matches most documents and slide decks.
If white is wrong for your case — a logo intended for a dark background, for instance — JPG is not the right target format. Keep it as PNG, or use WebP, which supports transparency and is smaller than PNG anyway.
How much space you actually save
It depends entirely on what the PNG contains, and the difference between the two cases is dramatic. Measured with this tool:
| What the PNG contains | Source | As JPG | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Photograph saved as PNG | 8,636 KB | 337 KB | 96% smaller |
| UI screenshot, flat colour | 7 KB | 51 KB | 7× larger |
| Logo with transparency | 9 KB | 20 KB | larger, and flattened |
The pattern is consistent and worth internalising. If the PNG holds a photograph, converting to JPG is a huge win. Someone exported a camera image as PNG — a very common accident, since many editors default to it — and you can reclaim almost all of that space with no visible difference.
If the PNG holds a screenshot, diagram or logo, converting to JPG makes things worse in both directions. The file gets bigger and the image gets worse, because JPG's compression is built around the assumption that neighbouring pixels vary smoothly. Sharp text edges violate that assumption badly, producing the faint grey "mosquito noise" that makes converted screenshots look grubby. For that case, WebP usually wins outright — see the measured numbers across all three formats.
The file list shows before and after sizes for every image, so if a conversion made something larger you will see it immediately rather than discovering it later.
Choosing a quality setting
The default here is 82. Because PNG sources are pristine — no prior lossy compression to compound — you can generally go a little lower than you would with a JPG source before artefacts appear.
On our test photograph, quality 60 produced a 189 KB file against 337 KB at quality 80. That is a substantial saving for a difference you would struggle to spot without flicking between the two at full zoom. If the image contains text or line art, stay at 85 or above, or reconsider JPG entirely.
Metadata
PNGs rarely carry Exif data in the first place, since they usually come out of editors and screenshot tools rather than cameras. CloudlessConvert does not currently copy Exif metadata from a PNG source into the resulting JPG — the metadata-preservation toggle applies to JPG and HEIC sources. In practice this rarely matters here, since there is usually nothing in a PNG to carry over anyway.
Related conversions
Common questions
What happens to transparent areas when I convert PNG to JPG?
They are filled with white. JPG cannot store transparency, so something must go behind the image. Many converters leave those areas black because that is the technical default of an empty canvas; this one deliberately uses white, which is what people almost always want.
Why did my PNG get bigger after converting to JPG?
Because it was not a photograph. Screenshots, diagrams and logos are made of flat colour and sharp edges, which PNG compresses very efficiently and JPG handles badly. In our test a 7 KB screenshot became a 51 KB JPG. For that kind of image, keep the PNG or use WebP.
How much smaller will my photo get?
If the PNG contains a photograph, typically around 90–96% smaller. Our 8.6 MB test photo came out at 337 KB at quality 80 with no visible difference at normal viewing size.
Can I choose a different background colour instead of white?
Not currently — transparent areas always become white. If you need a different colour behind the image, flatten it onto that background in an editor first, or convert to WebP instead, which keeps the transparency intact.
Will converting reduce the image dimensions?
No. The pixel dimensions stay exactly the same; only the encoding changes. This tool does not resize images.