About JPEG XL
JPEG XL is the format the JPEG committee itself designed to replace JPEG, standardized by ISO in 2022. It compresses better than JPEG in lossy mode, better than PNG in lossless mode, and supports HDR, wide color gamuts, high bit depths, and enormous image dimensions.
Its most distinctive trick is lossless JPEG recompression: an existing JPEG can be repacked as JPEG XL roughly 20% smaller with zero quality loss, then converted back to the byte-identical original at any time. No other modern format offers that migration path for the billions of JPEGs already in the world.
The catch is adoption. Among browsers, only Safari currently displays JPEG XL, and Chrome removed its experimental support — so it is not yet safe for general web publishing. Convertmaxxing encodes and decodes JPEG XL directly in your browser: convert your images to .jxl to experiment or archive, or convert .jxl files back to JPG or PNG so anyone can open them. Free, no signup, and files never leave your device.
Strengths
- Stronger compression than JPEG in lossy mode and PNG in lossless mode
- Recompresses existing JPEGs about 20% smaller with no quality loss — reversibly
- Supports HDR, wide gamut, high bit depths, and progressive decoding
- Encodes much faster than AVIF at comparable quality
Limitations
- Browser support is limited — currently only Safari displays JPEG XL
- Chrome dropped its support, which has stalled adoption across the web
- Most upload forms, chat apps, and older editors will not accept .jxl files