Melt guide

AVIF on Mac — opening and converting AVIF images

AVIF is the next-gen image format that's even smaller than WebP. Here's how to open and convert AVIF files on macOS.

4 min read

You came across an .avif file on a website, saved it locally, and now your apps don’t quite know what to do with it. AVIF is the newest of the modern image formats — smaller than WebP, smaller than JPEG, but support outside of browsers is still catching up.

What AVIF is

AVIF (AV1 Image File Format) uses AV1 video compression for still images. At the same visual quality it’s about 20% smaller than WebP and roughly 50% smaller than JPEG. It supports HDR, wide colour gamuts, and transparency. Browser support landed in Chrome 85, Firefox 93, and Safari 16.

Opening AVIF on Mac

Preview. macOS Ventura and later open AVIF natively. Double-click and it works.

Older macOS. No native support — you’ll need to convert first.

Quick Look. Same story: Ventura+ shows previews, older releases show a blank icon.

Converting AVIF to JPEG or PNG

sips does not currently handle AVIF on most macOS versions. The reliable tool is ImageMagick:

brew install imagemagick
magick photo.avif photo.jpg
magick photo.avif photo.png

For a folder:

mkdir jpg
for f in *.avif; do
  magick "$f" "jpg/${f%.avif}.jpg"
done

The faster way

Drop your AVIF files into Melt, pick JPEG or PNG as the output, click Compress. Skips the Terminal and handles a batch in one drag. Download Melt.

Convert in Melt

  1. Open Melt.
  2. Drag your AVIF files in.
  3. Pick output format — JPEG for photos, PNG if transparency matters.
  4. Set quality if JPEG.
  5. Click Compress.

Going the other way — exporting AVIF

If you’re prepping images for a website that supports AVIF:

magick photo.jpg -quality 60 photo.avif

AVIF quality scales differently from JPEG — quality 60 in AVIF looks comparable to JPEG quality 85. Don’t crank it to 90+ or you lose the size advantage.

When AVIF is worth it

When it isn’t:

What you lose, what you keep

AVIF → JPEG is a re-encode and lossy on top of whatever loss is in the source. AVIF can carry colour profiles and HDR data that don’t survive the trip to JPEG. For sharing or further editing, JPEG is fine. For archival of an AVIF you grabbed off a site, keep the original AVIF as well.

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