Batch convert images to AVIF with parallel encoding.

Supports RAW camera files (ARW, CR2, CR3, DNG, NEF, etc.), HEIC/HEIF, and standard formats (JPEG, PNG, WebP, BMP, TIFF, GIF).

Note: This is proof-of-concept code. It may be unreliable and is not actively maintained.

cargo install avify

On macOS, HEIC works out of the box: files are decoded with the system sips tool.

Elsewhere (or for in-process decoding on macOS), build with the libheif system library:

brew install libheif
cargo install avify --features heic

Why libheif is not on by default: there is no pure-Rust HEVC decoder. libheif-rs can compile libheif from vendored source (embedded-libheif), but that needs cmake and a C++ toolchain on every installer's machine, and the HEVC decode still links a system libde265. Without it the build succeeds and every HEIC fails at runtime. Cargo features are compile-time flags, so they cannot be enabled after install without a full rebuild.

avify [OPTIONS] [FILES]...

If no files are given, converts all supported images in the current directory.

Warning: each original is trashed once its AVIF is written successfully. Pass -k, --keep to keep originals.

Animated GIFs are transcoded to AV1 video (name.av1.mp4) to preserve their animation. Single-frame GIFs are encoded as AVIF stills, including transparency, with a quality cap of 60; other still images use the requested quality (80 by default). If the normal animated-GIF encode is larger than the source, avify retries at a lower bitrate before keeping the original. Other video files are opt-in: with --video, files (mov, mp4, m4v, webm, mkv, avi) are transcoded to AV1 (name.av1.mp4, audio copied) using SVT-AV1 (-preset 10 -crf 32 — on screen recordings: ~87% smaller, faster than realtime, visually transparent). Requires ffmpeg with libsvtav1:

brew install ffmpeg

avify probes PATH and the homebrew locations for an ffmpeg with libsvtav1; if none has it, it falls back to slow libaom with a warning. --quality/--speed do not affect video. Videos encode one at a time (SVT-AV1 already uses all cores). AV1 may not preview in QuickLook on pre-M3 Macs.

If a conversion (image or video) is not smaller than the original, the output is discarded and the original kept — already-compressed files often grow when re-encoded. Kept originals are tagged with a com.avify.keep xattr so later runs skip them instead of re-encoding; retry one with:

xattr -d com.avify.keep file.mp4

avify *.jpg

avify -q 90 -s 6 photo.arw

avify -o converted/ -m originals/

avify -x raw_photos/*.cr3

• Parallel encoding via rayon — uses all CPU cores
• RAW support via imagepipe (ARW, CR2, CR3, DNG, NEF, ORF, RAF, RW2, PEF, SRW, X3F)
• HEIC/HEIF support — via sips on macOS, or libheif with --features heic
• XMP sidecar edits — applies Lightroom exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, white balance, crop, saturation, and vibrance adjustments
• 10-bit AVIF output for better color depth

This project is licensed under MIT.

This project depends on the following libraries with their own licenses:

• imagepipe — LGPL-3.0 (RAW decoding)
• ravif — BSD-3-Clause (AVIF encoding)
• libheif / libheif-rs — MIT / LGPL-3.0 (HEIC decoding, optional)