Choose an .ai file and download each artboard as an SVG of vector paths. It works on files saved the usual way, with a PDF copy of the artwork inside. If yours has none, the page says so and tells you how to save it again.

Free, no account. The file is read by code running in your browser. It is not uploaded, and nothing about it is stored.

How to convert an AI file to SVG

Choose your .ai file or drop it on the box.
If the file has several artboards, pick one with the arrows or type its number.
Compare the two pictures: the artboard as the file’s own PDF copy draws it, and the SVG made from it.
Read the notes for anything the SVG does not hold, then download it. Artboards are saved one at a time, under names such as logo-artboard-2.svg.

What is inside an .ai file

Since Illustrator 9, which came out in 2000, an .ai file has been two files in one. The outside is a PDF, with one page for each artboard, holding a finished copy of the artwork. Tucked inside that PDF is Illustrator’s own record of the document: its layers, its text as words that can still be edited, its symbols and its effects that can still be changed. Only Illustrator reads that inner part.

The PDF copy is there because of a box in Illustrator’s save window called “Create PDF Compatible File”. It is ticked unless somebody unticks it, and it is what lets other programs preview, place and open the file. This page reads the PDF copy, as most programs other than Illustrator do when they open an .ai file, and writes its paths into an SVG. To convert AI to SVG this way needs no Adobe software and no account.

When the file has no PDF copy

Unticking that box makes a smaller file, and some people do it to save disc space. What is left for every other program is a single page of text that begins “This is an Adobe Illustrator File that was saved without PDF Content”. A converter that takes no notice hands back an SVG of that sentence, or a blank page. This one looks for the note, and when it finds it, it says what has happened and offers no download.

The cure needs Illustrator, or someone who has it. Open the file, choose File, Save As, keep the format as Adobe Illustrator (ai), and tick “Create PDF Compatible File” in the Illustrator Options window that follows. The new file will convert here. From Illustrator itself, File, Export, Export As writes an SVG directly, and the guide to exporting SVG from Illustrator goes through its options.

Files from Illustrator 8 and earlier are written in PostScript and have no PDF part at all. The page recognises them, and EPS files too, and says so. It does not convert them.

What comes through from Illustrator

Paths and compound paths, with their curves kept as curves and their holes kept as holes.
Fills and strokes: flat colour, opacity, stroke weight, caps, corners, the mitre limit and dashed lines.
Clipping masks, one inside another where the artwork nests them.
Linear and radial gradients, as SVG gradients with the same stops.
Text, as outlines, wherever the file carries the font. Illustrator puts the letters a document uses into the PDF copy when the font’s licence allows it. The words cannot be retyped afterwards, but they look the same on every device.
Everything Illustrator has already drawn out. PDF has no words for a brush stroke, a symbol, a blend or an envelope, so the PDF copy holds the plain paths those are drawn with, and so does the SVG.
The artboard as the SVG’s page. Illustrator measures in points, 72 to the inch: a 12 × 12 inch artboard gives a viewBox of 864 × 864 and a width and height of 304.8 mm.

What is left out, and counted

Pictures. Placed photographs are made of pixels. So is anything Illustrator turns into pixels when it saves: drop shadows, glows, feathering and blurs. The SVG holds vector shapes only.
Gradient meshes and pattern fills. The shape is kept, without that fill.
Opacity masks and blending modes such as multiply. The shapes are drawn plainly, at full strength.
Text in a font the file does not carry. The notes name the font. Type, Create Outlines in Illustrator, then saving again, gets round it.
Layers, groups and names. The SVG is a flat list of paths in the order they are painted, grouped only where a clipping mask needs it.
Exact print colours. Colours are written as RGB. A document set up in CMYK, or one using spot inks, is converted by the PDF reader, so a print red can look a little different here from how Illustrator shows it.
Artwork off the artboard. Whatever the PDF copy holds beyond the artboard’s edge is written too, but it lies outside the SVG’s page and does not show.

Questions

Do I need Illustrator to use this?

No. The page reads the PDF copy of the artwork that Illustrator puts in every .ai file by default. You only need Illustrator, or a friend with it, when the file was saved with that copy switched off.

Why does it say my file holds no artwork?

It was saved with “Create PDF Compatible File” unticked. Such a file carries the drawing only in Illustrator’s own form, plus a one-page note for everyone else. Saving it again from Illustrator with the box ticked puts the artwork back where other programs can read it.

Will the SVG keep my layers?

No. Layers live in the part of the file that only Illustrator reads. The SVG has every visible path in painting order, which is enough for cutting, engraving, printing and the web. If you need named layers in the SVG, export it from Illustrator.

Can I convert an AI file on a phone or a Chromebook?

Yes. Nothing is installed and the file stays on the device. A large file with many thousands of paths takes longer to convert on a phone than on a computer.

Can this turn an SVG into an AI file?

No, and there is little need: Illustrator opens SVG files itself. The guide to opening an SVG in Illustrator covers what to check when it does.

AI to SVG converter