BMP Converter
FileFlip converts BMP files into 61 other formats entirely inside your browser, using ImageMagick, MuPDF and Pandoc compiled to WebAssembly. The BMP file is never uploaded to a server: it is read off your disk, converted on your own machine, and saved back by the browser. There is no file-size limit and no account to create.
How do I convert a BMP file?#
- Drop your BMP file onto the converter at the top of this page, or click it to pick one from your computer.
- Choose the format you want out of it. FileFlip downloads the engine that conversion needs, once, and your browser caches it.
- Conversion starts the moment you pick the format, and the result is yours to download. The work happens in this tab, so nothing is uploaded and nothing is queued.
Is it safe to convert BMP files online?#
Yes, because nothing is uploaded. FileFlip converts BMP files inside the browser tab you already have open, using WebAssembly builds of the same engines a desktop converter would install. Your file is read from your own disk into the page's memory, and no request carrying it is ever made.
You do not have to take that on trust. Open your browser's network panel, run a conversion, and you will see the engine come down and your file go nowhere. There is no upload, no server-side copy, no retention window, and no account tied to what you converted.
How FileFlip works lists every engine, its version and its download size, and shows how to check for yourself that nothing leaves your machine.
What happens to a BMP file#
FileFlip converts BMP into 61 formats with ImageMagick, MuPDF and Pandoc, all of it inside the browser tab. Each conversion below names the engine it uses, what it downloads, and exactly what that conversion keeps or drops.
| Category | Image Files |
|---|---|
| File extension | .bmp |
| FileFlip support | Read and written |
| Conversions available | 61 |
| Engines | ImageMagick, MuPDF and Pandoc |
| Downloaded to your browser | 14.1 MB on the first conversion, then cached |
What is a BMP file?#
A BMP file holds a device-independent bitmap: a pixel grid stored with a Microsoft-defined header and, in the overwhelming majority of BMP files in the wild, no compression at all.
Use BMP when a Windows-native application, printer driver, or legacy tool specifically expects it, or when pixel data has to be stored with zero encoding overhead for a processing pipeline.
Convert BMP to PNG or JPEG for anything leaving that pipeline, since both produce a far smaller file and PNG matches BMP's lossless, generation-safe quality.
The BMP file format reference covers the specification, the programs that open one, and what each conversion keeps or drops.
BMP questions people ask#
Why are BMP files so much bigger than JPEG or PNG?
Most BMP files store every pixel's color value directly with no compression, so a BMP is close in size to the raw uncompressed image data. JPEG and PNG both apply compression, lossy in JPEG's case and lossless in PNG's, which is why the same photo saved as either is a fraction of the size of a BMP.
Can a BMP file be compressed?
Yes, though it's rare in practice. The BMP specification includes run-length encoding modes, RLE8 for 8-bit images and RLE4 for 4-bit images, that compress losslessly the same way GIF's LZW does, just less efficiently. Almost all BMP files encountered in practice still use BI_RGB, the uncompressed mode, because that is what most software defaults to writing.
Does BMP support transparency?
It can, but support is inconsistent. The BITMAPV4HEADER and BITMAPV5HEADER, both extensions to the original format, can store a 32-bit image with an alpha channel, but many image viewers, browsers, and older software ignore that alpha data entirely and render the image as fully opaque. PNG's alpha transparency is much more reliably supported across software.
Is BMP the same thing as a DIB?
They're closely related. DIB, device-independent bitmap, is the internal Windows data structure of header, color table, and pixel data that a BMP file wraps in a short file header. The .dib extension is used for that same data saved without expecting the .bmp file header, which is why BMP and DIB are treated as aliases of the same format.
Why does old Windows software still use BMP?
BMP has been part of the Windows GDI graphics API since the 1980s, so decades of Windows applications, printer drivers, and icon or wallpaper tools were built to read and write it natively without needing an external image library. That built-in support, plus the format's simplicity to decode, is why it has stayed in use in Windows-specific tooling even though it's a poor choice for sharing images.