Format
Animated Portable Network Graphics
Summary
- Name
- Animated Portable Network Graphics
- Identifiers
-
- PUID: fmt/935
- MIME: image/apng
- Library of Congress Format Description Identifier: fdd000649
- Wikidata QID Identifier: Q433224
- Format type
- Image (Raster)
- Description
- APNG is an extension of the PNG format, adding support for animated images. It is intended to be a replacement for simple animated images that have traditionally used the GIF format, while adding support for 24-bit images and 8-bit transparency. APNG is intended as a simpler alternative to MNG. APNG is backwards-compatible with PNG; any PNG decoder should be able to ignore the APNG-specific chunks and display a single image.
- File extensions
-
png,apng - Submitted by
- Digital Preservation Department / The National Archives
Relationships
- Has priority over
Internal signatures
APNG
- Description
- Signature + IHDR and acTL chunks at BOF, IEND chunk at EOF Specification: https://wiki.mozilla.org/APNG_Specification
- Provenance
- v. 122- Signature updated with added variable signature. Submitted by Preservica.
Byte sequences
- Min Frag Length
- Absolute from BOF
- Offset
- 0
- Max offset
- 0
- Byte Sequence
89504E470D0A1A0A0000000D49484452*6163544C- Endianness
- None
- Min Frag Length
- Absolute from EOF
- Offset
- 0
- Max offset
- 0
- Byte Sequence
0000000049454E44AE426082- Endianness
- None
- Min Frag Length
- Variable
- Offset
- None
- Max offset
- None
- Byte Sequence
6663544C00000000- Endianness
- None
Changelog
-
V122
- Release date
- 19 January 2026
-
Updated
Animated Portable Network Graphics: MIME type corrected, LOC and wikidata identifiers added. Signature updated to add a variable sequence of bytes to prevent clashing. Submitted by Library of Congress and Preservica.
-
V86
- Release date
- 27 July 2016
-
Added format
Animated Portable Network Graphics: Full entry added.
-
Added signature
Animated Portable Network Graphics: Signature developed through PRONOM Research.
External Links
The National Archives is not responsible for the contents available at the following links