BMP to TGA Converter

What happens when you convert BMP to TGA

• The image is decoded and written as an uncompressed 32-bit TGA with an alpha channel.
• The TGA is written uncompressed at 32 bits with an alpha channel and a top-left origin, which every program that reads TGA accepts, including game engines. Expect about 4 bytes per pixel.

How to convert BMP to TGA online

1. Press "Choose BMP files" and select one or more files, or drag them onto the box. You can add files of any size your device can hold in memory.
2. Adjust the settings if you need to. The output is lossless, so there is no quality setting to worry about.
3. Press "Convert to TGA". Images convert in a second or two each.
4. Save each TGA with its download button. Close the tab and every trace of the files is gone from memory.

Why convert BMP to TGA?

BMP files usually come from Windows software, embedded displays and legacy tools. People convert them to TGA because TGA is the texture format game engines, 3D tools and video effects software have read for decades, alpha channel included.

In short, BMP is good at what it was made for, and TGA is the more practical choice when the file has to open, upload or print somewhere else. BMP opens in browsers and every Windows image tool, while TGA does not open in browsers; Photoshop, GIMP and game engines read it.

How to convert BMP to TGA on Windows, Mac, iPhone and Android

On Windows

Open this page in Chrome, Edge or Firefox, drag your BMP files in from File Explorer, and press Convert. Each TGA is saved to your Downloads folder.

On a Mac

Safari, Chrome and Firefox all work. Drag the BMP files from Finder onto the drop zone and the TGA files land in Downloads.

On iPhone and iPad

Open the page in Safari and tap Choose BMP files. You can pick from Photos or from the Files app. The converted TGA appears in Files, in the Downloads folder; to put it in your photo library, open it there, tap Share and choose Save Image.

On Android

Open the page in Chrome, tap Choose BMP files and pick them from Files or your gallery. The TGA is saved to the Download folder, where any file manager can find it.

Best settings for BMP to TGA

TGA is written uncompressed with its alpha channel, so there is no quality setting: every pixel and every level of transparency is kept. Use the Maximum width setting if the game engine or tool needs a smaller texture.

Many game engines prefer texture sizes that are powers of two, such as 512, 1024 or 2048 pixels. Resize the image to those dimensions first if the engine asks for them.

BMP vs TGA: the differences

About BMP and TGA files

What is a BMP file?

BMP usually stores pixels with no compression at all, so a 12 megapixel photo is about 36 MB. That size is the price of being readable by almost any program ever written for Windows.

What is a TGA file?

TGA, also called Targa, stores pixels uncompressed or with simple run-length compression, plus an alpha channel. Its simplicity is why game engines and 3D tools still use it for textures decades after it was created.

BMP to TGA not working? Common problems

• Colours look slightly different. Browsers convert images to the standard sRGB colour space when they decode them, so wide-gamut and CMYK images can shift a little.
• A phone photo comes out upright even though it looked sideways elsewhere. That is correct: the rotation stored in the photo is applied during conversion, so the TGA is always the right way up.
• The file is bigger than expected. It depends on the settings. At the defaults, the TGA usually comes out close in size to the BMP; lower the quality for a smaller file.

Convert BMP to TGA from the command line

If you work in a terminal, ImageMagick converts BMP to TGA in one line:

magick input.bmp output.tga

To convert every BMP in a folder at once, use magick mogrify -format tga *.bmp. The converter on this page does the same job without installing anything.