About SwapFormat

SwapFormat is a small set of image format converters built on one idea: your files should never have to leave your device to change format.

Why it works this way

Almost every free image converter online follows the same pattern. You upload your file, a server converts it, and you download the result. It works, but it means handing your photos to a stranger's computer, waiting through an upload that is often slower than the conversion itself, and accepting whatever file limits or watermarks the operator needs in order to afford the server bill.

Modern browsers no longer make that necessary. WebAssembly can run a full HEIC decoder at close to native speed, and the canvas API can write JPG, PNG and WebP. Everything the job requires is already sitting in the tab. So that is where the work happens here — no upload, no queue, no file size cap beyond your own memory, and nothing retained anywhere because nothing was ever sent.

What it is honest about

Doing everything client-side has real limits, and it is more useful to name them than to pretend otherwise:

• No AVIF output. Browsers can read AVIF but cannot write it. Producing AVIF genuinely requires a server or a desktop encoder.
• Metadata is dropped. EXIF data, including GPS coordinates and camera model, is not carried into the converted file. For public sharing that is usually desirable, but if you need it preserved these are the wrong tools.
• Very large batches can exhaust the tab. Memory is finite. Fifty high-resolution photos at a time is comfortable; several hundred may not be.
• HDR is flattened. Converting an HDR image to JPG tone-maps it to standard dynamic range, which cannot be undone.

How the site is funded

Advertising, and nothing else. There is no paid tier, no upsell, and no data to sell — the files never arrive here, so there is nothing to monetise even if we wanted to. The privacy policy sets out exactly what the ad network does and does not see.

Because conversion runs on your device rather than ours, the site costs almost nothing to operate no matter how many people use it. That is what makes a genuinely unlimited free tool sustainable.

Get in touch

Bug reports and requests for formats that are not covered yet are welcome at hkggroups@gmail.com. If a specific file fails to convert, saying which format and which browser you used makes it far easier to fix.