Jon Sneyers released FLIF in October 2015, working with Pieter Wuille, aiming to outperform PNG, lossless WebP, and lossless JPEG 2000 on compression ratio while adding a distinctive progressive-decoding trick: because of its MANIAC entropy coding, a partial download of a FLIF file could still be decoded as a recognizable, if blurry, preview of the whole image, well beyond simple interlacing.<\/p>
FLIF never reached broad adoption, and its own creator moved on: Sneyers combined FLIF’s ideas with lossy compression techniques to create the Free Universal Image Format, which was subsequently merged into JPEG XL. That leaves FLIF a dead end for DAM purposes \u2014 there is no camera, browser, or major creative tool that produces or consumes it natively, and no ongoing development to fix that. If a FLIF file surfaces in a collection (most likely from an experimental workflow around 2015-2018), the right move is a one-time conversion to a live format rather than treating FLIF as an archival target.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An experimental royalty-free lossless raster format aiming to beat PNG and lossless WebP compression, using MANIAC entropy coding and progressive interlacing so a partial file still renders a usable preview.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":"","faq":[{"question":"Should a DAM accept FLIF as an ongoing ingestion format?","answer":"No. Avoid FLIF for ingestion or long-term storage; the format is effectively discontinued, having been folded into the effort that became JPEG XL, and never had broad application or OS support."},{"question":"What should happen to legacy FLIF assets already in a collection?","answer":"Convert them to PNG or JPEG XL promptly rather than keeping FLIF as the format of record, since active tooling and support have moved on."},{"question":"Does FLIF support structured metadata like EXIF or XMP?","answer":"No. It has no standardized metadata block equivalent to EXIF, IPTC, or XMP."},{"question":"What was FLIF's technical goal?","answer":"To beat PNG and lossless WebP compression using MANIAC entropy coding, with a progressive interlacing design so a partial file still renders a usable preview."},{"question":"Is FLIF supported in mainstream operating systems or creative tools?","answer":"No. There is no native support in Windows, macOS, major browsers, Photoshop, or Lightroom; only the reference encoder\/decoder tools and a limited community GIMP plugin exist."},{"question":"What happened to FLIF's development?","answer":"It stopped after its creator merged the format's ideas into a successor project that ultimately became part of JPEG XL, leaving FLIF itself frozen and unmaintained."},{"question":"What is the practical migration path for FLIF assets?","answer":"JPEG XL tooling, specifically libjxl-based encoders, since JPEG XL absorbed FLIF's underlying ideas and is the actively maintained successor format."},{"question":"Does FLIF support animation and transparency?","answer":"Yes. FLIF supports arbitrary bit depth, alpha transparency, and animation, but that capability is moot for DAM purposes given the format's discontinued status."}],"checked_date":"2026-08-07","sources":[{"statement":"Jon Sneyers released FLIF, the Free Lossless Image Format, in October 2015, created together with Pieter Wuille.","source_name":"Wikipedia - Free Lossless Image Format","url":"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Free_Lossless_Image_Format","checked":"2026-08-07"},{"statement":"FLIF claims to outperform PNG, lossless WebP, lossless BPG, and lossless JPEG 2000 in compression ratio, and supports progressive decoding of partial files.","source_name":"ResearchGate - FLIF: Free lossless image format based on MANIAC compression","url":"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/307516106_FLIF_Free_lossless_image_format_based_on_MANIAC_compression","checked":"2026-08-07"},{"statement":"Sneyers combined FLIF with lossy compression ideas to create FUIF, which was merged into JPEG XL, and as a result FLIF is no longer being developed.","source_name":"HandWiki - Free Lossless Image Format","url":"https:\/\/handwiki.org\/wiki\/Software:Free_Lossless_Image_Format","checked":"2026-08-07"}],"kicker":"","fact_checker":0,"reading_time":0,"revisions":[],"seo_title":"","seo_description":"","noindex":false,"ext":"flif","full_name":"Free Lossless Image Format","vendor_name":"Jon Sneyers and Pieter Wuille","introduced":"October 2015","container_notes":"FLIF supports arbitrary bit depth, alpha transparency, and animation, and its progressive design means any sufficiently large chunk of the file can be decoded as a lossy preview of the full image. It has no standardized metadata block equivalent to EXIF\/IPTC\/XMP, and development stopped after its creator merged the ideas into a successor project that ultimately became part of JPEG XL, leaving FLIF itself frozen and effectively unmaintained.","open_with":[{"platform":"Command line","how":"the reference FLIF encoder\/decoder tools from the original project"},{"platform":"GIMP","how":"limited support only through a community plugin, not built in"},{"platform":"Mainstream OS\/browsers\/creative tools","how":"no native support in Windows, macOS, major browsers, Photoshop, or Lightroom"},{"platform":"JPEG XL tooling","how":"successor-format encoders (libjxl) are the practical migration path rather than continued FLIF tooling"}],"archive_advice":"Avoid FLIF for DAM ingestion or long-term storage: the format is effectively discontinued, having been folded into the effort that became JPEG XL, and has never had broad application or OS support. Any legacy FLIF assets in a collection should be converted to PNG or JPEG XL promptly rather than kept as the format of record.","related":[2611,2613,2603,2598,2595,2604],"tool_link":""},"silo":[23],"class_list":["post-2597","format","type-format","status-publish","hentry","silo-formats"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/picajet.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/format\/2597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/picajet.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/format"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/picajet.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/format"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/picajet.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/format\/2597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3655,"href":"https:\/\/picajet.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/format\/2597\/revisions\/3655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/picajet.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"silo","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/picajet.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/silo?post=2597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}