Key takeaways
- HEIC is Apple's HEIF container, the default since iOS 11, storing photos at roughly half the size of JPG with equal or better quality.
- HEVC patent licensing means Windows 10 and 11 need a paid Store extension, and many upload portals and older Android phones reject HEIC entirely.
- Converting to JPG at 92 percent quality is visually indistinguishable, but the JPG is typically 1.5 to 2 times the size of the HEIC.
- To shoot JPG directly, set Camera, Formats to Most Compatible; to keep HEIC but convert on cable transfer, set Photos, Transfer to Automatic.
You AirDrop a photo to a colleague, attach it to a form, or copy it to a Windows PC, and it either refuses to open or the upload button rejects it. The file ends in .HEIC. The photo itself is fine; the format is one that much of the world still does not read.
What HEIC is
HEIC is Apple's container for images encoded with HEIF, the High Efficiency Image Format, which uses the same compression as HEVC video. Apple made it the default camera format in iOS 11 because it stores the same photo at roughly half the size of a JPG with equal or better quality, and it supports things JPG cannot, such as 16-bit colour, Live Photos, and image sequences in one file.
The catch is licensing and support. HEVC is patent-encumbered, so operating systems and applications that do not pay for a decoder cannot open the files. Windows 10 and 11 need a paid extension from the Microsoft Store. Many web upload forms whitelist JPG and PNG only. Older Android phones, some email clients, and most government and job-application portals do not accept it at all.
Converting in the browser
Our HEIC to JPG converter decodes the file on your device and re-encodes it as JPG at 92% quality, which is visually indistinguishable from the original for photographs. Nothing is uploaded; the decoder runs in your browser. Drop the file in, download the JPG, done. If you need transparency or lossless output, HEIC to PNG does the same job into PNG.
A converted JPG is typically 1.5 to 2 times the size of the HEIC, because JPG's compression is older and less efficient. If the destination has a size cap, run the result through the image compressor, which can target a specific file size such as 200 KB or 1 MB.
What conversion loses
A JPG holds one 8-bit image. Converting from HEIC drops anything the container carried beyond that: the video half of a Live Photo, any depth map from Portrait mode, and the extended colour range on newer iPhones. For sharing, printing and uploading none of this matters. Keep the original HEIC in your camera roll if you want to edit the Portrait blur later.
EXIF metadata, including the GPS location, survives the conversion. If you are posting the JPG publicly, strip it with the EXIF remover first.
Stopping it at source
If the people you send photos to are usually on Windows or Android, change the camera setting so the iPhone shoots JPG in the first place. In Settings, go to Camera, then Formats, and choose Most Compatible instead of High Efficiency. Photos will take up roughly twice the storage, which on a phone with a large library is the trade-off to weigh.
A middle path: leave the camera on High Efficiency and change the transfer setting instead. In Settings, go to Photos, scroll to Transfer to Mac or PC, and choose Automatic. The phone then converts to JPG when copying over a cable, while keeping HEIC on the device. AirDrop between Apple devices sends the original HEIC either way; sharing through the Mail app or most messaging apps converts automatically.
HEIC and the other formats
JPG is still the universal format for photographs and the one to use whenever you do not control the receiving software. PNG is for screenshots, graphics and anything needing transparency. WebP sits between them for the web, smaller than JPG and supported by every current browser. Our guide to JPG vs PNG vs WebP covers when each fits; HEIC's role is simply the storage format on the phone, and JPG is what it becomes when it leaves.
Frequently asked questions
HEIC uses the HEVC codec, which is patent-licensed. Windows 10 and 11 do not include the decoder by default; it is a paid add-on from the Microsoft Store. Converting the photo to JPG sidesteps the problem.
Not noticeably for photographs. The converter re-encodes at 92% JPG quality. What you lose is extra data the JPG format cannot hold, such as the Live Photo video, Portrait depth maps and extended colour range.
Go to Settings, then Camera, then Formats, and select Most Compatible. Photos will use about twice the storage. Alternatively set Transfer to Mac or PC to Automatic under Settings, then Photos, to convert only when copying.
No. The HEIC to JPG converter decodes and re-encodes the image in your browser, so the photo stays on your device.