File Format Guide

JPG

JPG (or JPEG) is the format most cameras and phones save photos in by default — it uses lossy compression tuned for photographic detail.

PNG

PNG is a lossless image format built for sharp edges, flat colors, and transparency — think logos, screenshots, and UI graphics rather than photos.

WEBP

WEBP is Google's web-focused image format, offering both lossy and lossless modes plus transparency in one file type.

AVIF

AVIF is a newer, next-generation image format built on the AV1 video codec, delivering some of the smallest file sizes available today.

GIF

GIF is a decades-old format limited to 256 colors per frame, but it's still the standard way to share short looping animations.

BMP

BMP is an old Windows bitmap format that stores pixel data with little or no compression — simple, but large.

TIFF

TIFF is a flexible, high-fidelity format favored in printing, scanning, and professional photography workflows.

SVG

SVG is a vector format described in XML — instead of a pixel grid, it stores shapes and paths, so it stays crisp at any size.

ICO

ICO is the Windows icon container format — it can bundle several sizes of the same image into one file for favicons and app icons.

HEIC

HEIC (High Efficiency Image Container) is Apple's default photo format on iPhone, storing photos at roughly half the size of an equivalent JPG.

PSD

PSD is Adobe Photoshop's native project format, preserving layers, masks, and editable text rather than a single flattened image.

JXL

JPEG XL is a modern successor to JPEG, aiming for both better compression and lossless re-encoding of existing JPEGs.

EXR

EXR (OpenEXR) is a high-dynamic-range image format built for visual effects work, storing far more brightness detail per pixel than a standard photo format.

MIFF

MIFF (Magick Image File Format) is ImageMagick's own native format, built to losslessly preserve every image attribute ImageMagick knows about.

CIN

CIN (Cineon) is a 10-bit logarithmic image format Kodak built in the early 1990s to represent scanned film frames for digital effects work.

RAS

RAS (Sun Raster) is the native bitmap format of Sun Microsystems' SunOS/Solaris workstations from the 1980s and 90s.

MP3

MP3 is the format that made digital music mainstream — lossy compression that plays back on essentially every device made in the last 25 years.

WAV

WAV stores audio with no compression at all, which is why it's the standard format in recording studios and audio editing software.

AAC

AAC is the compressed audio format behind iTunes, YouTube, and most streaming services — generally more efficient than MP3 at the same bitrate.

OGG

OGG (usually carrying Vorbis audio) is a royalty-free, open compressed format popular in games and open-source software.

M4A

M4A is an audio-only MPEG-4 container, most often holding AAC audio — it's what Apple Music and Voice Memos save by default.

FLAC

FLAC is a lossless compressed audio format — same audio quality as WAV, but roughly half the file size thanks to genuine (not perceptual) compression.

WMA

WMA (Windows Media Audio) is Microsoft's compressed audio format, mostly seen in older Windows Media Player libraries.

OPUS

Opus is a modern, royalty-free codec built for both music and speech, widely used in video calls and voice messaging.

MP4

MP4 (usually carrying H.264 video) is the most widely compatible video container — it plays on essentially every phone, browser, and TV.

MOV

MOV is Apple's QuickTime container format — it's what iPhones record video into by default.

WEBM

WEBM is an open, royalty-free video format built for the web, typically using the VP9 codec for strong compression at small sizes.

AVI

AVI is an older Windows video container from the 1990s — still around, but far less efficient than modern formats.

MKV

MKV (Matroska) is a flexible open container that can hold multiple audio tracks, subtitles, and chapters alongside the video.

M4V

M4V is Apple's video variant of the MP4 container, used by iTunes for movies and TV show downloads.

TS

TS (MPEG Transport Stream) is a broadcast- and camera-oriented format designed to stay resilient during streaming or recording interruptions.

PDF

PDF is a fixed-layout document format designed to look identical on any device, printer, or operating system.

DOCX

DOCX is Microsoft Word's document format — an editable, reflowable format built for drafting and revising text.

XLSX

XLSX is Microsoft Excel's spreadsheet format, storing formulas, formatting, and multiple sheets of tabular data.

PPTX

PPTX is Microsoft PowerPoint's presentation format, storing slides, layouts, transitions, and speaker notes.