Best AVIF Viewers for Windows - and Which One to Install

AVIF files are roughly half the size of the same picture as a JPEG, which is why websites have quietly switched to them.

Windows has not caught up, so the file lands on your desktop as a blank white icon that nothing will open.

Fixing that takes two minutes. Choosing what to open it with is the part worth thinking about.

First, the one thing every option below depends on

Most Windows image software does not decode AVIF itself - it asks Windows to do it, through a component called the Windows Imaging Component.

Installing the free AV1 Video Extension from Microsoft teaches Windows the format once, and everything that asks politely gets AVIF support for free: File Explorer thumbnails, Photos, Paint, and Word and PowerPoint.

Two of the viewers below do not need it, because they carry their own decoder. The table says which.

The six viewers, compared

If you want one answer and no reading: IrfanView if you will ever convert or resize in bulk, ImageGlass if you just want double-clicking a photo to feel instant.

IrfanView - the one to install if you convert anything

IrfanView is under four megabytes and looks like it was designed in 2003, which is roughly when it was. It is also the fastest way to do the same thing to several hundred images at once, and that has kept it installed on other people's machines for twenty years.

AVIF comes from IrfanView's own PlugIns pack, not from Windows - a separate installer on the same download page. Install it and AVIF works whether or not you added the Microsoft codec. Recent builds also read animated AVIF.

The batch dialogue handles convert, resize, crop, rename and filter in one pass, with the output format and quality set once and applied to everything.

Best for: bulk conversion, resizing a folder for the web, and anyone who would rather a viewer started instantly than looked modern.

XnView MP - for a library rather than a folder

XnView MP reads somewhere north of 500 formats and is built around a browser pane rather than a single image, which is the difference between a viewer and a cataloguer.

It reads AVIF without the Microsoft codec. The batch converter handles AVIF to JPG and AVIF to PNG with a quality slider, and the batch renamer is genuinely good - patterns, counters, and EXIF fields pulled into filenames.

Best for: several thousand photographs that need sorting, tagging and renaming as much as viewing.

FastStone Image Viewer - the nicest one to actually look at photos in

FastStone Image Viewer hides everything. Full screen by default, toolbars that slide in when the mouse reaches the edge, and nothing else on the screen but the picture.

It reads AVIF through Windows, so it needs the AV1 Video Extension installed first. Beyond viewing it does red-eye removal, cropping, colour adjustment and slideshows, and there is a portable build that runs from a USB stick.

Best for: going through a holiday's worth of photographs on a big screen without an interface in the way.

ImageGlass - the Photos app replacement

ImageGlass is the one to set as your default if the Windows Photos app irritates you. It opens instantly, it looks like it belongs on Windows 11, and it handles touchscreens properly.

It reads around ninety formats out of the box and extends further through codec plugins, JPEG XL among them. Colour profiles are respected and EXIF appears on request rather than by default.

Best for: double-clicking a picture and having it on screen before you have let go of the mouse.

PicView - minimal, and on more than Windows

PicView takes the opposite approach to XnView: one image, almost no interface, and settings for anyone who wants to strip it back further.

It reads AVIF, HEIC, WebP, PSD and a hundred-odd others without help from Windows, and it runs on macOS and Linux as well, which matters if you move between machines.

Best for: a clean default viewer, and cross-platform consistency.

nomacs - for comparing two images properly

nomacs does one thing nothing else here does: you can open two copies of it side by side and synchronise them, so panning and zooming one moves the other.

That turns "is the compressed version actually worse" from a guess into something you can see, which is the exact question AVIF raises. It ships an AVIF plugin in the box, reads images straight out of ZIP archives, and has a portable build.

Best for: checking what a conversion cost you before you delete the originals.

Converting AVIF into something else

Viewing is one problem and handing the file to somebody whose software is older is another. Three options, in order of how much you want to think about it.

Converseen exists to convert a pile of files and nothing else. Drag in a folder, pick the output format, set resize and quality once, and go. It runs on ImageMagick underneath, so the format list is enormous.

Our step-by-step guide to converting AVIF files with Converseen walks the whole thing through if you want the screenshots.

reaConverter is the one to look at if this is a recurring job rather than a one-off. Watch Folders convert anything dropped into a directory automatically, and there is a command-line interface for scripting it.

GIMP is overkill for a straight conversion and the right answer when the file needs editing on the way through - layers, masks, retouching, and then export to whatever you need.

Online, with nothing installed

On a work laptop where you cannot install software, or for a single file that does not justify a download, Convertico converts in the browser.

• AVIF to JPG - the one almost everybody wants, for sending a file to somebody whose software is older.
• AVIF to WebP - still small, and supported by a wider set of older browsers.
• JPG to AVIF - going the other way, to cut the weight of images on a site.
• GIF to animated AVIF - a far smaller file than the GIF, with proper colour.

The conversion runs on your own machine rather than on a server, so the picture is never uploaded anywhere.

Quick questions