twitter update
January 7, 2019

Goodbye PNG: The images that you upload to Twitter will be converted to JPG

By admin

From 11th February, the images that you upload to Twitter in PNG format will be processed differently, being converted to JPG. Through a statement, the social network explained that until now the PNG files had been processed inconsistently, and this change will unify the use of images on its platform.

twitter update

The visual elements are a key to stand out in the increasingly saturated social networks, and are especially important for brand accounts, which should ensure that their images are clear and above all professionals.

What are the PNG and JPG formats

As a quick summary, the PNG files stand out for being a compression format without loss of information, in which they are also allowed to use transparencies, and of course, their size is greater.

On the other hand, the JPG file is the best known and most widespread format among Internet users. It is a format designed to compress digital and photographic images, since it has high compatibility with different platforms and programs, and size much less than PNG. What is negative side? The loss of quality every time they are edited.

The images that you upload to Twitter will change from PNG to JPG

Now you can better understand the decision of Twitter when it comes to automatically change the format of these files. According to the platform itself:

“The way in which Twitter has handled PNG loads in the past was not always consistent and could lead to the use of large PNG images when a JPG would have been preferable for the load latency of the image and the user’s data costs” points out the social network in its statement.

“The changes we are making will provide consistent behavior in the images that you upload to Twitter, in order to reach a global audience by reducing the amount of PNG images that are published on the platform”.

This means that the images that you upload to Twitter in PNG format will be converted to JPG, reducing the size of the files considerably.

According to Twitter, in a large part of the planet many users can only access the internet at 2G speeds, while other users have slow or unreliable internet. PNG images are usually between 6 and 9 times larger than JPG files and while the loading time may be a few seconds apart for many users, for others become many more.

In this way, it is expected to reduce this data load and create a uniform user experience.

PNG images of less than 900 pixels or PNG8 will not be converted

This change will be made from February 11, 2019, but it is important to note that not all PNG files will be handled in the same way.

To find out what Twitter has in mind, you can use the following visual guide on what will happen with each type of PNG file when it loads from February.

PNG images

There are two keys to this change when uploading your images to Twitter: files less than 900 pixels (in their largest dimension) and images in PNG8 format will remain as they are when you load them. This rule was established because Twitter has chosen to maintain these parameters to “continue providing support to artists who use Twitter to share their work, without risking theft or being degraded”.

In this way, most users will not notice much change in the transformation of their PNG files to JPG on Twitter, but for brands and those users who share high-quality artistic images, it is important to consider this update.