---
title: Convert images on a Mac: HEIC, JPG, PNG, WebP
source: https://arazioformac.com/docs/convert-images
---

# Convert images

Pick the image up in Finder, hold <kbd>⇧</kbd>, let go toward the format you
want.

**The one-gesture way**

1. Pick the file up in Finder, as if you were moving it.
2. Hold `⇧`. A ring of formats appears around the cursor.
3. Let go toward **JPG**. The new file lands beside the original.

HEIC converts to eight formats — hold ⇧ and they appear around the cursor:
AVIF, BMP, GIF, JPG, PDF, PNG, TIFF, WebP.

Six actions work on any file at all — hold ⌃, including on files Arazio cannot
convert: AirDrop, Shelf, Copy, Move, Copy Path, Terminal.

That is the whole thing. It works on one file or four hundred, and
nothing is uploaded — the conversion happens on your Mac.

## What converts to what

Arazio reads and writes HEIC, JPG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, TIFF, GIF, BMP and ICO, and
can write any image as a PDF. Each format has [its own page](/docs/formats/heic)
listing exactly what it converts to.

The short version:

- **HEIC → JPG** is the common one. iPhone photos that something refuses.
- **PNG → JPG** when a screenshot is too large to email.
- **Anything → WebP or AVIF** when it is going on a website.
- **Anything → PDF** when it needs to be a document rather than a picture.

## Several images into one PDF

Select the images, drag the selection, hold <kbd>⇧</kbd> and release toward
**PDF**. Arazio asks whether you want one PDF containing all of them, or one
PDF per image.

The order follows the order you selected them in.

## Transparency

PNG, WebP, AVIF, TIFF, GIF and ICO keep an alpha channel. JPEG does not have
one.

Converting a transparent PNG to JPEG fills the transparent areas with white,
because that is the only thing a JPEG can do. If the result has a white box
where you expected nothing, that is why — convert to WebP or keep the PNG.

## Quality and size

JPEG, WebP and AVIF are lossy: they trade detail for size, and converting a
file that has already been through that loses a little more. Convert once from
the best original you have rather than repeatedly from a copy.

PNG and TIFF are lossless, so a PNG of a photograph is often many times larger
than the JPEG it came from. That is not a bug in the conversion.

## Shrinking without converting

If the format is fine and the file is just too big, use the **Compress** tool
on <kbd>⌥</kbd> instead. It re-encodes the image where it sits rather than
changing what it is. [More about tools](/docs/tools).

## Nothing is uploaded

The conversion happens on your Mac. The engines contain no networking code at
all, and a test fails the build if a networking symbol appears in one.
[Privacy and permissions](/docs/privacy).