ImageIO

Read and write images and video across all major formats. Supports scientific and volumetric data.

imageio Permissive license BSD-2-Clause Active ★ 1,712 v2.37.4 released 2026-07-20

Install

imageio on PyPI

pip

pip install imageio

uv

uv add imageio

poetry

poetry add imageio

Package facts

License	BSD-2-Clause (permissive)
Python support	supports the current Python release (>=3.10)
Install friction	low — pure-Python wheel
Runtime dependencies	2 — numpy, pillow
Maintenance	actively maintained — 24 days since the last release
Last repo commit	2026-08-05
First released	2012-07-15
Popularity	one of the top 1,000 most-downloaded packages on PyPI (30-day window, as of 2026-08-13)
Known vulnerabilities	none known (OSV.dev, checked 2026-08-13)

Evidence: imageio-2.37.4-py3-none-any.whl

Keywords: image, video, imread, imwrite, io, animation, ffmpeg, image processing, numpy, format conversion, scientific imaging, medical imaging, volumetric, video encoding, multimedia, gif, tiff, png, jpeg

Development Status :: 5 - Production/StableIntended Audience :: DevelopersIntended Audience :: EducationIntended Audience :: Science/ResearchOperating System :: MacOS :: MacOS XOperating System :: Microsoft :: WindowsOperating System :: POSIXProgramming Language :: Python :: 3Programming Language :: Python :: 3.10Programming Language :: Python :: 3.11Programming Language :: Python :: 3.12Programming Language :: Python :: 3.13Programming Language :: Python :: 3.14

About ImageIO

from the package's own PyPI description — quoted content, verbatim

IMAGEIO

CI (image) CD (image) codecov (image) Docs (image)

Supported Python Versions (image) PyPI Version (image) PyPI Downloads (image) DOI (image)

Website: <https://imageio.readthedocs.io/>

Imageio is a mature Python library that makes it easy to read and write image and video data. This includes animated images, video, volumetric data, and scientific formats. It is cross-platform, runs on Python 3.10+, and is easy...

Read as markdown · JSON record · Source repository · Docs

AI interpretation — verify before relying

AI-generated interpretation of the package facts above; every digit, version, license, or vulnerability id it cites is grounded in the facts already shown on this page

ImageIO reads and writes images and video across all major formats, including animated images, volumetric data, and scientific formats, with a simple unified API backed by numpy and pillow.

Low friction: pure Python wheel with only numpy and pillow as core runtime dependencies. Actively maintained with a release 24 days ago and 1712 GitHub stars; supports Python 3.10–3.14.

BSD-2-Clause (permissive) allows commercial and private use with minimal restrictions; attribution and license notice required in distributions.

Usage

import imageio.v3 as iio
im = iio.imread('image.png')  # returns numpy array
iio.imwrite('output.jpg', im)  # write to file

Requires Python 3.10 or later; numpy and pillow must be installed.

Verdict: ImageIO is a mature, actively maintained library (Production/Stable since 2012) with minimal dependencies and no known vulnerabilities. Its permissive BSD-2-Clause license and top-1000 PyPI popularity make it a low-risk choice for cross-platform image and video I/O in scientific and general applications.

Needs verification

Whether optional backends (imageio-ffmpeg, pyav, tifffile, etc.) are required for specific formats beyond the core pillow support
Performance characteristics for large volumetric datasets or high-resolution video streams

read write images videoimage format conversionanimated gif video handlingscientific volumetric imagingcross-platform image ionumpy array image processingtiff png jpeg gif support