No browser can open a TIFF, and that is deliberate
Drag a .tif into Chrome and it downloads instead of showing it. Same in Safari, Firefox and Edge. It is one of the few common image formats the web simply never adopted.
The reason is that TIFF is barely a format at all. It is a container that describes what is inside it: how many bits per channel, what the channels mean, how the data is compressed and how it is laid out. Readers are expected to cope with all the combinations.
So two files with the same extension can have almost nothing in common. A fax is a 1-bit black-and-white image compressed with a scheme designed for telephone lines. A scan is 8-bit LZW. A print file is CMYK. A satellite image is 32-bit floating point. Supporting TIFF properly means shipping a library for all of it, and browsers decided not to.
Multi-page is normal, not exotic
This is the part that catches people out, and it catches converters out too.
Document scanners and fax machines write one page per sheet into a single TIFF. A scanned contract, a set of plans, a batch of correspondence: all routinely arrive as one file with several images inside it.
A great many converters silently return the first page. You get a file back, it looks right, and you find out later that pages two through twelve were never there. Here every page is shown with its own properties, and you can save one or take the lot as a zip with the pages numbered and padded so they sort correctly in a folder.
The cost of the conversion
A converter that quietly throws information away is worse than one that refuses, so this says what it is about to do before you save.
Bit depth. TIFF can hold 16 or 32 bits per channel. JPG and PNG cannot, so it becomes 8. That is a limit of the destination rather than a decision, and in practice it shows only as banding in very smooth gradients. If the extra depth is why you have a TIFF, keep it.
CMYK. Print files are frequently CMYK, and converting to RGB shifts colours, because some inks simply have no screen equivalent. Fine for looking at and for sending to somebody. Not a substitute for the original if it is going back to a printer.
Extra channels. A TIFF can carry more than four, usually spot colours or masks. Those are dropped, and the tool says so.
Lossless is not the same as high quality
TIFF's reputation does it a slight disservice here, because "lossless" gets heard as "better".
Lossless means the file stores exactly what it was given. Save a JPEG as a TIFF and you have preserved that JPEG's compression artefacts perfectly, in a file ten times the size. Nothing has been improved.
Where TIFF genuinely wins is at the start of a workflow: it holds more than 8 bits per channel, and it can be opened, edited and saved repeatedly without degrading, which JPEG cannot. That is why scanning, print and archives use it, and why converting to JPG is a one-way step worth doing at the end rather than the beginning.
Which format to convert to
JPG for photographs, and for anything being emailed or uploaded. The size difference is enormous: a 40MB scan often lands under 2MB with no visible change.
PNG for scans of text, line drawings, diagrams and anything with sharp edges, where JPEG's compression puts a halo around every letter. Also for anything with transparency, which JPEG has no way to store at all. The files stay large.
Nothing leaves your device, and here that matters
Look at what TIFFs usually are. Scans. Contracts, medical records, deeds, land registry plans, correspondence, identity documents.
Every other free TIFF converter asks you to upload one of those to a server you know nothing about. This one decodes it in your browser using a TIFF library served from this site, so there is no upload, no queue, no account and no size limit beyond what your own machine will hold.
Common questions
Why will my browser not open a TIFF?
Because no browser supports it. Not Chrome, not Safari, not Firefox, not Edge. Drag a .tif in and it downloads rather than displays. That is not an oversight so much as a decision: TIFF allows so many internal variations that supporting it properly means shipping a small library, and the web settled on JPEG and PNG instead.
My TIFF has several pages. Will I get them all?
Yes. Document scanners and fax machines write one page per sheet into a single file, so a scanned contract is often a twelve page TIFF. Plenty of tools hand back page one and say nothing, which is the thing most converters get wrong. Every page is shown here, and you can save one or all of them as a zip.
Should I convert to JPG or PNG?
JPG for a photograph, and for anything you need to email or upload, because the files are a fraction of the size. PNG when the TIFF is a scan of text, a diagram or line art, when it has transparency, or when it is going to be edited again. TIFF is lossless, so converting to JPG is the first loss the file has taken.
What is lost in the conversion?
It depends on the file, and the tool tells you before you save rather than after. Anything above 8 bits per channel drops to 8, which is a limit of JPG and PNG rather than a choice, and shows only as banding in very smooth gradients. CMYK becomes RGB, and some print colours simply do not exist on screen. Extra channels, usually spot colours or masks, are dropped.
Is a TIFF better quality than a JPG?
It is lossless, which is not the same as higher quality. A TIFF made from a JPEG contains exactly the JPEG's flaws stored in a much larger file. Where TIFF genuinely wins is that it can hold more than 8 bits per channel and can be saved repeatedly without degrading, which is why scanning, print and archival workflows use it.
Does the TIFF get sent away to be converted?
No. It is decoded in your browser by a JavaScript TIFF library served from this site. That matters here more than usual, because TIFFs are overwhelmingly scans: contracts, medical records, deeds, plans and correspondence. Every other free TIFF converter takes an upload of exactly that.