BMP to JPG: Dealing with Windows Bitmap Files

If you're dealing with a BMP file in 2025, it's probably because:

• Someone sent you one from a very old system
• You took a screenshot on an old Windows machine
• You're working with legacy software that only exports BMP
• You accidentally saved in the wrong format

BMP (Bitmap) is one of the oldest image formats still around. It's basically raw pixel data with no compression. Which means the files are huge.

Why BMP files are so big

A BMP file stores every single pixel's color value without any compression. A 1920x1080 image at 24-bit color is about 6MB as BMP. The same image as JPG might be 300KB.

That's 20x larger for literally no benefit.

Converting BMP to JPG

Just drop the file into a converter and save as JPG. There's no special handling needed—BMP is such a simple format that everything can read it.

The conversion takes seconds and you'll get a file that's dramatically smaller with no visible quality loss.

Should you keep the BMP?

Probably not. BMP doesn't offer anything that PNG or JPG don't do better. The only reason to keep a BMP is if you're working with software that specifically requires it.

If you're worried about quality loss, convert to PNG instead of JPG. PNG is lossless like BMP but with actual compression.

Where BMP comes from

BMP was Microsoft's standard image format in the early Windows days. Screenshot utilities, Paint, and most Windows software defaulted to BMP.

It stuck around in some industries (medical imaging, some industrial applications) because those systems don't get updated often and BMP is dead simple to implement.

But for normal use? There's no reason to use BMP in 2025.

Quick fix

Got a BMP cluttering up your storage? Convert it:

1. Go to CovertConvert
2. Drop the BMP file
3. Download as JPG or PNG
4. Delete the original

You'll reclaim a lot of disk space with zero downside.