File Format Glossary
A plain-English guide to the file formats our tools work with — what each one is, its strengths and weaknesses, and when to use it.
Image formats
PNG · Portable Network Graphics
A lossless raster image format that supports transparency, ideal for graphics, logos, screenshots, and anything with sharp edges or text.
JPG · Joint Photographic Experts Group
A lossy raster format tuned for photographs, balancing small file size against image quality.
WEBP · Web Picture format
A modern Google format offering both lossy and lossless compression, typically 25–35% smaller than JPG or PNG at similar quality.
BMP · Bitmap
An uncompressed raster format that stores pixel data directly, producing large but maximally compatible files.
TIFF · Tagged Image File Format
A high-quality raster format favored in printing, scanning, and archiving, supporting lossless storage and multiple pages.
ICO · Icon
A Windows icon container that bundles several sizes of an image in one file, used for app icons and website favicons.
SVG · Scalable Vector Graphics
An XML-based vector format that scales to any size without losing sharpness, ideal for logos and icons.
HEIC · High Efficiency Image Container
Apple's modern photo format that stores high-quality images at roughly half the size of JPG, used by default on iPhones.
AVIF · AV1 Image File Format
A next-generation image format based on the AV1 video codec, delivering smaller files than JPG or WEBP at similar quality.
Video formats
MP4 · MPEG-4 Part 14
The most widely compatible video container, playable on virtually every device and platform.
MOV · QuickTime Movie
Apple's QuickTime container, common on Macs and iPhones and high quality for editing.
WEBM · WebM
An open, royalty-free video format designed for the web, offering small sizes with VP8/VP9 codecs.
MKV · Matroska Video
A flexible open container that can hold many video, audio, and subtitle tracks in one file.
AVI · Audio Video Interleave
An older Microsoft video container with broad legacy support but weak compression by modern standards.
Audio formats
MP3 · MPEG-1 Audio Layer III
The universal lossy audio format — small files that play on every device and app.
WAV · Waveform Audio File Format
An uncompressed, lossless audio format that preserves full quality at the cost of large files.
OGG · Ogg Vorbis
An open, royalty-free lossy audio format that often sounds better than MP3 at the same bitrate.
AAC · Advanced Audio Coding
The successor to MP3, used by Apple Music and YouTube, offering better quality at the same bitrate.
FLAC · Free Lossless Audio Codec
A lossless audio format that compresses without quality loss — about half the size of WAV.
M4A · MPEG-4 Audio
An MPEG-4 audio container (usually holding AAC) used by Apple's iTunes and Voice Memos, offering better quality than MP3 at the same size.