.AVIF File Extension

AVIF Image

Developer	Alliance for Open Media
Popularity	3.0 \| 91 Votes

What is an AVIF file?

An AVIF file is an image saved in the AV1 Image File Format developed by the Alliance for Open Media. It contains compressed image data, similar to a .JPEG or .PNG file. The AV1 Image format was designed as an alternative to the JPEG, PNG, and .WEBP formats.

More Information

Screenshot of a .avif file in Microsoft Photos — AVIF file open in Microsoft Photos

In 2015, several high-profile tech companies, including Amazon, Cisco, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Mozilla, and Netflix, formed the Alliance for Open Media. This non-profit workgroup began developing several open-source media technologies and standards, including the AV1 video codec.

Eventually, the workgroup realized that the AV1 codec could be applied to images saved in the .HEIF file format. This allowed the workgroup to create the AV1 Image File Format, which can be used to save high-quality, compressed images within files that are the same size as lower-quality JPEGs. Notably, AVIF files contain less blocking, blurriness, and other visual distortions than similarly-sized JPEGs.

AVIF supports HDR and monochrome images and color depths of 8, 10, and 12 bits. The format also supports both lossless and lossy compression.

In the early 2020s, many companies began using AVIF files and adding support for the AVIF format. Notably, Netflix has begun using AVIF files internally, and Google has added AVIF support to Android 12 and the Chrome web browser. Microsoft has also provided users with a codec that can be used to view AVIF images in programs like Microsoft Paint.

How to open an AVIF file

You can open an AVIF file with Google Chrome, Apple Preview, Adobe Photoshop, qView, and several other image viewers. Windows users can open AVIF files with Microsoft Paint or Microsoft Photos, but must first install the AV1 Video Extension.

Advanced users can use the open-source libavif library to encode and decode AVIF images.