What is a .tiff file? (TIFF)

TIFF is a flexible, high-quality image format favoured in photography, publishing and scanning. It can store lossless images, multiple pages and rich metadata, which makes it a common master and archive format even though the files are large.

What is a .tiff file used for?

TIFF is a container that can hold uncompressed or losslessly compressed images, layers, multiple pages and extensive metadata. Print shops, museums and document scanners rely on it as a high-fidelity master.

Because it favours quality over size, TIFF files are large and not meant for the web. You export smaller JPG or PNG copies for sharing.

Its flexibility is also a quirk: two TIFFs can use very different internal compression, so an odd file may need a specific viewer.

How to open a .tiff file

The .tiff format opens in the following apps, grouped by operating system. If one app does not work, try another from the same list. For a step-by-step walkthrough, see how to open a .tiff file.

Windows

Photos
IrfanView
Photoshop
Windows Photo Viewer

macOS

Preview
Photos
Photoshop

Linux

GIMP
Image Viewer
ImageMagick

Web

Not natively in most browsers, convert first

How to convert a .tiff file

You can convert a .tiff file to PNG, JPG, PDF using a conversion tool or the export menu of an app that opens it.

Convert images free: ImageConvert

.tiff file signature (magic bytes)

Programs recognise a .tiff file by the bytes at the start of the file, not by its name. These are the signatures for TIFF. For a full breakdown, see the TIFF file signature page.

Hex signature	Offset	Note
49 49 2A 00	0	little-endian (Intel)
4D 4D 00 2A	0	big-endian (Motorola)

See the full magic-numbers reference for every format.

Frequently asked questions