Geometric bird logo
Most of this PNG is transparent, and the SVG keeps those areas empty. The trace uses the mark's 6 colors across 23 paths.
- Original
- PNG, 1000 × 1000 px, 25 KB
- SVG
- 11 KB
- Paths
- 23
- Solid colors
- 6
- Gradients
- 0
- Trace mode
- General
PNG to SVG converter
Drop a PNG below and it is traced into vector paths that stay sharp at any size. Your first conversion needs no account.
Drop your image here
Drop a PNG here, transparent or not. JPG and WebP work too.
PNG, JPG, WebP, AVIF, GIF or BMP, up to 20 MB
Browse files
What happens to a transparent background
A PNG can have transparent pixels, and the SVG does not always keep them clear. The examples gallery has seven PNGs with a transparent background. The bluebird logo came back with its background still empty, so that SVG sits on any color. The other six are gradient icons and illustrations, and each came back with a white rectangle the size of the canvas behind the artwork.
If you need the background clear, fix it in the editor before you download:
- Eraser
- Click the white rectangle where no other shape covers it. Erased shapes are left out of the file you download.
- Remove background
- It masks the background of your original image and removes the whole shapes that lie mostly inside it. Check what is left before you download.
Keep the rectangle if the design should have a white background.
The first two examples below show one of each case. Both the PNG and the SVG are drawn on a checkerboard there, so transparent areas show the squares.
PNG to SVG examples
Five PNGs from the examples gallery, each traced in General mode and published exactly as the converter returned it. Every row shows the whole image and a small detail enlarged, so you can compare the pixels in the PNG with the curves in the SVG.
Gradient shield icon
The blue to cyan shading is held in 14 SVG gradients. This is one of the six that got a white rectangle behind the art.
- Original
- PNG, 1024 × 1024 px, 126 KB
- SVG
- 61 KB
- Paths
- 54
- Solid colors
- 12
- Gradients
- 14
- Trace mode
- General
Coffee shop badge logo
A flat badge in 4 colors with two lines of text. The SVG has the same 4 colors and no in-between tints from the anti-aliased edges. The letters are traced as filled shapes, so the file needs no fonts.
- Original
- PNG, 1000 × 1000 px, 69 KB
- SVG
- 17 KB
- Paths
- 37
- Solid colors
- 4
- Gradients
- 0
- Trace mode
- General
Lightning monogram logo
3 colors and 9 paths. Corners stay sharp and the hexagon outline keeps an even width. The SVG is about a seventh of the PNG's size.
- Original
- PNG, 1000 × 1000 px, 37 KB
- SVG
- 4.9 KB
- Paths
- 9
- Solid colors
- 3
- Gradients
- 0
- Trace mode
- General
Robot mascot
Nine colors in the drawing and nine in the SVG, across 24 paths. The rounded corners of the robot stay round.
- Original
- PNG, 1000 × 1000 px, 35 KB
- SVG
- 9.3 KB
- Paths
- 24
- Solid colors
- 9
- Gradients
- 0
- Trace mode
- General
Flat colors, gradients and file size
PNG stores pixels without lossy compression, so a logo saved straight to PNG keeps its flat colors. The flat logos above came back with the colors they were drawn in. A PNG made from a JPG still carries the JPG's extra shades; the JPG to SVG page covers that case.
For flat art the SVG is often a fraction of the PNG. The monogram is 4.9 KB as SVG and 37 KB as PNG. Soft shading costs more. The stopwatch icon traced to 212 paths and 42 gradients, and its SVG is 186 KB against a 241 KB PNG.
Enlarged to 4,000 px wide, the coffee badge PNG becomes a 1.82 MB file. Its SVG is 17 KB at that width or any other.
If a few colors look slightly off, open Reduce colors in the editor. The slider merges the solid colors into a smaller palette, down to two; gradients are left as they are. Moving it back to the end restores the colors from before you first used it.
Large PNG files
You can upload a PNG of up to 20 MB. The upload to the converter is capped at 4.5 MB, so a file over about 3 MB is shrunk in your browser first. Its longest side is limited to 4,000 px, then the image is made smaller in up to seven steps to get under the limit.
A PNG stays a PNG through this step, so its transparency is kept. JPG, WebP and AVIF files are saved as JPG when they are shrunk, which is one reason to keep transparent art as PNG.
Crop screenshots and scans to the artwork before you upload, to keep unwanted background out of the trace.
Trace modes for cutting, laser and screen printing
The editor has four trace modes: General, Cutting, Laser and Screen print. Every conversion starts in General. Each new mode is another conversion; a mode you already tried on this image comes back without a new trace.
Cutting is meant for Cricut and Silhouette. On the gallery's cactus sticker it produced 18 paths, with the white die-cut border as one path around the whole sticker. There is more on the Cricut, laser and screen printing pages. The image to SVG page compares all four modes on real examples.
Download formats
Pick the format that matches the software that will open the file:
- SVG
- The traced file. Use it on the web and in Cricut Design Space or Silhouette Studio.
- PNG
- A new PNG rendered from the SVG at 2,048 px wide. Useful when all you had was a small PNG and you need a larger one.
- AI and PDF
- Vector files built from the SVG paths. The AI file is the PDF-based kind that Illustrator opens.
- DXF
- Outlines only, without colors, for laser and CNC software such as LightBurn. See image to DXF.
- EPS
- A raster picture of the SVG inside an EPS file, no more than 1,024 px wide. If a printer wants vectors, the PDF or AI file is the one to send.
Pro also gets a zip with all six.
Converting a folder of PNGs
Pro includes the REST API and an MCP server, on the same monthly allowance as the site. POST /api/agent/batch traces up to 10 PNGs in one request, at one credit per image, and answers when they are done. In Claude Code, Cursor or another MCP client, the batch_vectorize tool does the same job.
Large files go in as a public link or, on the hosted MCP server, as an upload, up to 20 MB each. Trace modes are only in the editor, so API results use General. The developer docs and the MCP guide have the setup.
Questions about PNG to SVG
- Is the SVG traced, or is it my PNG inside an SVG file?
- Traced. The gallery SVGs contain paths with fills and gradients and no embedded bitmap, so every shape can be selected and edited.
- Can I convert a PNG that has text in it?
- Yes. Letters are traced as filled shapes like the rest of the image, as in the coffee badge above. The SVG needs no fonts, but the text can no longer be edited as text.
- Which PNGs give the cleanest SVG?
- Flat colors and hard edges: logos, icons, lettering and line art. Soft shading and photos produce many more paths and a larger file. The examples gallery shows both.
- How many PNGs can I convert for free?
- One without an account. After that, a free account gets 3 vectorizations per day, and Pro gets 1,000 vectorizations per month for $9.99. See pricing.
Convert your PNG
Drop it on the converter at the top of the page, or choose the file here. The editor opens with your SVG when the trace is done.