How to open AVIF files

You saved a picture from a website, and instead of a .jpg you have a file ending in .avif. Double-clicking it gives an error, an upload form refuses it, or Photoshop says it can’t read the file. Nothing is wrong with the picture. AVIF is a newer image format that many sites now send because the files are small, and not every app on your computer has caught up.

There are two ways out: make your device able to open AVIF, or convert the file to JPG or PNG. Which one is better depends on what you want to do with the picture, and on a few things we found when we tested AVIF files on Windows 11 and in Chrome on 12 October 2026. App steps for Mac and phones below follow the makers’ documented support; we say where we did not test on the device ourselves.

The quick answer

What an AVIF file is

AVIF (AV1 Image File Format) stores a picture compressed with the AV1 video codec. At the same visual quality its files are often half the size of a JPG or smaller, which is why image services and big websites switched to it. Your browser tells each site which formats it understands, and if AVIF is on the list, that is what you get. Saving the picture keeps the file exactly as it was sent, so the AVIF ends up on your disk even though the web page looked like any other photo.

An AVIF can hold more than a JPG: a transparent background, an animation, colours from a wider range than standard sRGB (Display P3 or BT.2020) and HDR brightness. Those extras are exactly where opening and converting AVIFs goes wrong, as our tests show.

On Windows: the AV1 extension, and what it gets wrong

Windows doesn’t open AVIF out of the box. Install the AV1 Video Extension from the Microsoft Store (free), and Windows gains an AVIF decoder: Photos, Paint and File Explorer thumbnails start working. Paint can then save the picture as JPG or PNG.

We checked what that decoder actually delivers. On a Windows 11 PC with AV1 Video Extension 2.0.35, we opened five test AVIFs through Windows’ own image component, the one Windows programs use to read pictures, and compared the pixels with what Chrome shows:

So for an ordinary photo the extension is all you need. For a cut-out logo, a sticker or an animated AVIF, a program that relies on Windows’ decoder can give you a black background or a single frame, without a warning. We tested the decoder itself, not every app: some, like browsers, bring their own. In those cases convert in the browser instead: our AVIF to PNG tool keeps the transparency (every one of 11,348 half-transparent pixels in our test logo stayed exact) and can save every frame of an animation.

On a Mac, iPhone or iPad

Apple added AVIF support to macOS 13 Ventura and iOS 16 in 2022. On those versions and later, Preview, Photos, Quick Look in the Finder and the iOS Files app open AVIF files like any other picture, and Preview’s File > Export can save them as JPEG or PNG. On older Macs, Safari 16.4 added AVIF to Monterey and Big Sur, so dragging the file into a Safari window shows it. We didn’t test these apps on a device for this guide; this is Apple’s documented support.

On Android

Android 12 added AVIF to the system’s image decoder, so on recent phones most gallery apps can show the file. Apps that bring their own decoder may still refuse it. Chrome displays AVIF itself, also on older Android versions, so if no gallery app shows the file, opening it in Chrome usually does.

In Photoshop and other editors

Photoshop was slow to support AVIF. According to Adobe’s staff on its community forum, native AVIF saving arrived in Photoshop 26.8 (June 2025), under File > Save a Copy; before that, AVIF went through Camera Raw, without transparency. If your version won’t open the file, convert it to PNG first: PNG is lossless, so you edit exactly what the AVIF contained. GIMP and the free viewers XnView MP and qView open AVIF on their own.

Open it or convert it?

Opening is enough if you only want to look at the picture. Convert it when the file has to go somewhere else: an upload form, an email to someone on an older system, a print shop, a document. Then the choice is between two formats:

• JPG for photos. Expect it to be bigger than the AVIF: in our test a 497 KB AVIF photo became a 1.09 MB JPG at 92% quality, with no visible loss. AVIF to JPG fills transparent areas with a colour you choose.
• PNG for logos, graphics and anything with a transparent background. For photos it is huge: the same 497 KB photo became 5.27 MB.

One more thing to watch: wide colours. When a Display P3 AVIF is converted as plain sRGB, the most saturated red in our test shifted by 6.8 Delta E (clearly visible) and the greenest green by 5.3, while a skin tone moved by only 0.4. Our converters keep the P3 colours and embed a colour profile, with a standard-sRGB option for old software that ignores profiles.

Common problems

“This file format is not supported” in Photos after installing the extension. Restart Photos, or Windows, after installing; the decoder is only picked up when the app starts. If it still fails, the file may not be an AVIF at all: some files carry the wrong ending. Our AVIF tools check the file’s first bytes and tell you if it is really a JPEG, PNG, WebP or HEIC.

The picture opens, but the background is black. The AVIF has a transparent background and the app showing it doesn’t support transparency in AVIF, as we measured for Windows’ decoder. Convert it to PNG in the browser.

My downloads end in .jfif instead. That is a different issue: the file is a normal JPEG with a Windows-assigned ending. JFIF to JPG renames it without re-compressing and explains the registry setting that causes it.