JPG Converter
Thirty years old and still the format every camera, phone and website understands.
42 tools
Convert to JPG
Convert from JPG
Other JPG operations
Why JPEG refuses to die
JPEG compresses photographs by throwing away the detail human eyes are worst at noticing, and it does it well enough that at a sensible quality setting nobody can see the difference. More importantly, everything reads it: every browser, every phone, every printer, every form, every ten-year-old laptop. That universality is why it is still the safe answer whenever you do not control what happens to a picture next.
The quality setting, honestly
Somewhere around 80 to 90 is where almost everyone should live: below it, edges and flat colours start to show blocking; above it, the file grows fast for detail the eye cannot resolve. What matters more than the number is how many times an image has been through the process. Every save re-quantises the picture, so editing a JPEG, saving it, opening it and saving again visibly degrades it. Work from the original and export once.
When to leave JPEG behind
For anything with transparency, sharp text or flat graphics, JPEG is the wrong tool and PNG is the right one. For the web, WEBP or AVIF will give the same picture at half to two-thirds the bytes. And for archival photography the original camera file always beats any JPEG derived from it. JPEG's job is delivery, not storage: it is the format you send, not the one you keep.
Shrinking a JPG for a form or an email
Most size problems with JPGs come from phone cameras, which save 12-megapixel photos at 3 to 6 MB each, and from forms that want 200 KB or less. Two levers bring that down, and the order matters: resize first to the pixels the destination will show, then compress. A photo scaled to 1600 pixels on the long side and saved at quality 80 is usually under 300 KB and indistinguishable on a screen. Compress Image can also take a target size directly and search for the quality that lands just under it, which is the right tool for a 50 KB or 100 KB limit. Converting to WEBP cuts the file by another quarter when the destination accepts it.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between JPG and JPEG?
Nothing. JPEG is the name of the format; .jpg is the three-letter extension that early Windows forced on it. Every program treats the two identically, and renaming one to the other changes nothing inside the file.
What quality setting should I use for JPG?
80 to 90 for anything people will look at closely, 70 for ordinary web photos, below 60 only when the file size is the whole point. More important than the number: export once from the original, because every re-save loses a little more.
How do I reduce a JPG to under 100 KB?
Resize it first to the dimensions the form or site needs, then let Compress Image aim at the target: it tries several quality levels and keeps the best one that fits. A passport-style photo at 600 by 800 pixels fits in 100 KB with room to spare.