I-PR AVIF Converter – Automatic Image Optimization

I-PR AVIF Converter automatically converts your existing and new images to AVIF format — the most efficient image format available today — without any cloud service, subscription, or API key.

After 1 month of production testing across 6 live sites (5,089 images, 2.2 GB saved), this plugin achieves 40–70% file size reduction with zero visible quality loss and 0% conversion failure rate on both Aruba and Serverplan shared hosting.

Real Production Results

• dermopigmentazioneroma.it — 904 images, 721 MB saved (-68%), Mobile PageSpeed 80/100
• mangiaroma.com — 1,213 images, 804 MB saved (-70%), Desktop PageSpeed 97/100
• artmerlino.it — 371 images, 167 MB saved (-64%)
• apicolturalapegaia.it — 1,069 images, 135 MB saved (-69%)
• fnahospitalityroma.it — 432 images, 83 MB saved (-43%)

Total: 4,989 images converted. 0 failures. 2.2 GB saved.

Why AVIF?

AVIF is the next-generation image format supported by all modern browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari 16+, Edge). Compared to JPEG, it delivers 40–70% smaller files at equivalent visual quality. Compared to WebP, it delivers 20–30% better compression. Google PageSpeed Insights and Core Web Vitals (LCP) reward AVIF-optimized sites directly.

How It Works

When you upload an image, I-PR AVIF Converter queues it for background conversion via WP-Cron. No page load is blocked. Once converted, images are served automatically via the <picture> HTML element with a fallback to the original for older browsers:

Your original files are never modified unless you explicitly enable “Delete Originals.”

Key Features

Zero cloud dependency — All conversion happens on your server using PHP’s native Imagick or GD library. No API keys, no usage limits, no recurring costs.

Works on shared hosting — Tested and production-proven on Aruba Basic and Serverplan Eco/Basic. The plugin auto-detects your server’s encoder (Imagick or GD) and falls back gracefully.

Adaptive batch processing (AIMD) — The plugin learns your server’s speed using an Exponentially Weighted Moving Average and automatically adjusts how many images it processes per cron run. It never causes timeouts or OOM errors.

Memory guard — Before processing each image, the plugin estimates the required RAM based on image dimensions and encoder type (3.5× for Imagick, 1.8× for GD). If RAM is insufficient, the image is deferred to the next batch. No PHP Fatal errors.

Circuit Breaker for Imagick — If Imagick fails 3 consecutive times, the plugin automatically switches to GD and retries Imagick after 30 minutes. No manual intervention required.

Quarantine system — Images that fail 3 conversion attempts are automatically quarantined and excluded from future runs. You can review and retry quarantined images from the admin panel.

Skip Patterns — Exclude specific images or folders using wildcard patterns (e.g., logos/*.png, 2024/03/*-banner.jpg). Useful for images where conversion is not desired.

Bulk Scanner — Convert your entire existing media library with a real-time progress bar. The scanner is paginated and runs via AJAX without blocking the admin interface.

Telemetry Dashboard — Real-time dashboard showing conversion rate, average compression ratio, fail rate, performance score, and a rolling chart of the last 200 conversion events.

CDN integration — Automatic Cloudflare cache purge after each batch conversion, so your CDN always serves the latest AVIF files.

Elementor & lightbox support — Gallery lightboxes (Elementor, Fancybox, WP native) are rewritten to serve AVIF in the full-size view, not just thumbnails.

Animated GIF preservation — Animated GIFs are automatically detected (binary frame-count parsing) and excluded from conversion. AVIF does not support animation; the plugin never converts a GIF to a broken static file.

CMYK image handling — Images from professional photography workflows (JPEG with CMYK color space) are automatically converted to sRGB before encoding to prevent color inversion artifacts.

Clean uninstall — Removing the plugin deletes all database tables, options, transients, and the WP-Cron job. Zero ghost data left behind.

WooCommerce Compatibility

Tested on two active WooCommerce stores. Product images, gallery thumbnails, and checkout images are all converted and served correctly.

Encoder Compatibility

The plugin requires at least one of:

• Imagick ≥ 7.0.25 with libheif compiled with AV1 support
• PHP ≥ 8.1 with GD + libavif (imageavif() function available)

The Settings page shows which encoders are available on your server and their current status (including Circuit Breaker state).

PHP & WordPress Compatibility

Tested on PHP 7.4, 8.0, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3. Compatible with WordPress 5.8 through 6.7. PHP 8.2+ deprecation warnings have been resolved.

External Services

This plugin optionally communicates with the Cloudflare API (api.cloudflare.com) to purge CDN cache after batch image conversion.

This feature is disabled by default and only activates if you explicitly enable “Cloudflare CDN Integration” in the plugin settings and provide your own Cloudflare Zone ID and API Token.

No data is sent to Cloudflare unless this feature is manually configured. The only data transmitted are the public URLs of newly converted AVIF images, which Cloudflare needs to purge from its cache.

• Cloudflare service: https://www.cloudflare.com
• Cloudflare Terms of Service: https://www.cloudflare.com/terms/
• Cloudflare Privacy Policy: https://www.cloudflare.com/privacypolicy/

All image conversion is performed locally on your server. No images or personal data are ever sent to external services.