Image format
What is a MIFF file?
MIFF (Magick Image File Format) is ImageMagick's own native format, built to losslessly preserve every image attribute ImageMagick knows about.
John Cristy created MIFF alongside ImageMagick itself in 1999 as a platform-independent way to save an image mid-workflow without losing anything to a lossy or metadata-limited format. A MIFF file is a plain-text header of keyword=value pairs — color profile, comments, compression, class — followed by the raw pixel data, so unlike JPG or even PNG, it can round-trip every piece of state ImageMagick tracks internally. That makes it a solid choice as a lossless intermediate file in an ImageMagick-based pipeline, though outside that ecosystem almost nothing else can open it.
How to open a MIFF file
MIFF isn't something ordinary photo viewers or browsers open — it needs ImageMagick, GraphicsMagick.
MIFF is ImageMagick's internal working format — general-purpose photo viewers and editors won't recognize it.
Strengths & limitations
Good for
- preserves every image attribute and metadata field losslessly
- simple, well-documented text-plus-binary structure
Watch out for
- essentially unsupported outside ImageMagick/GraphicsMagick
Convert MIFF files
Orbfile can convert MIFF both ways, entirely in your browser — pick a direction below:
Frequently asked questions
What does a MIFF file contain?+
MIFF (Magick Image File Format) is ImageMagick's own native format, built to losslessly preserve every image attribute ImageMagick knows about.
Can I convert MIFF for free?+
Yes — Orbfile's image converter handles MIFF for free, with no file limit, watermark, or account, and it runs entirely in your browser.
Is converting a MIFF file safe and private?+
Yes. Orbfile processes MIFF files locally on your device using WebAssembly — nothing is uploaded to a server, so there's nothing to leak or store.
Who created the MIFF format?+
MIFF was developed by John Cristy, for ImageMagick, first released around 1999.
Browse the full file format guide.