How to convert HEIC photos to JPG here
If a laptop, a website or someone else’s phone refuses your iPhone photos, this gets them into JPG in a few steps:
- Add the photos. Drop HEIC or HEIF files on the box, or use Choose HEIC photos. A folder copied off an iPhone often mixes stills with short .MOV clips; drop the lot, and the clips are set aside with a notice saying how many.
- Look over the list. The first 24 photos get thumbnails straight away and the rest appear as they are converted, so a big batch does not tie up the page. An expected total size for the converted files is shown before you start.
- Under Convert to, choose JPG, PNG or WebP. For JPG and WebP pick a quality of 95, 90, 80 or 70; 90 is the default and suits almost everyone.
- Decide about photo details. Keep photo details (date, camera, location) is off, so the GPS position, capture time and phone model are left out unless you switch it on.
- Select Convert HEIC. Progress names each file in turn, and Cancel stops the batch without losing the photos already done.
- Download each photo, or choose Download all (ZIP). IMG_1234.HEIC comes out as IMG_1234.jpg, so the names still match your phone.
Select a converted photo to check it in the compare view: Fit, 100% or 200%, with a slider between the HEIC and the result. The report under it, headed “What changed in” and the file name, lists every change made, such as colour converted to sRGB or details removed.
What happens to your photos: decoded and converted on this device
Phone photos are personal, and many carry the exact spot where they were taken, so it is worth thinking twice before sending them to a server, as many online converters require. Here the work happens in the tab. When a HEIC file arrives, the page loads libheif, a HEIC decoder compiled to WebAssembly (code browsers run at close to native speed), in a background worker. Each photo is read into memory, decoded, saved as JPG, PNG or WebP by the site’s own WebAssembly encoders, and handed back as a download. Your photos are never uploaded.
You can check this in a minute. Open the browser’s developer tools, choose the Network tab and convert a few photos: you will see the page’s own code and the analytics page-view, and nothing the size of a photo. Or cut the connection after the page has loaded and convert a batch anyway: nothing needs the network. Are online PDF converters safe? shows how to run the same check on any site.
What HEIC is, and why your iPhone uses it
HEIC is a photo stored in HEIF, the High Efficiency Image File Format, published as the international standard ISO/IEC 23008-12. HEIF is the container: it defines how pictures, thumbnails and their details are packed into one file. The picture inside is compressed with HEVC, the video codec also called H.265 (ITU-T H.265, the same text as ISO/IEC 23008-2; https://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-H.265), so each photo is stored much like one frame of a video. The Android Open Source Project calls HEIC an HEVC-specific brand of HEIF (https://source.android.com/docs/core/camera/heif); the tool accepts both extensions.
Apple adopted it with iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra. Its support page says HEIF and HEVC compress better than JPEG and H.264, saving storage at the same visual quality, and that capturing in them needs an iPhone 7 or later (https://support.apple.com/en-us/116944).
The format can also do things JPG cannot: store more than 8 bits per colour channel, which some phones use for high dynamic range (HDR) photos, and hold several images or an image sequence in one file. A JPG holds a single 8-bit picture, and that gap explains most of what changes in a conversion.
Why HEIC photos will not open on so many devices
Nothing is wrong with the photo. The trouble is at the receiving end, usually in one of four places:
- Windows. Photos shows “You need an extension to use this file.” Microsoft’s help page says to get both the HEIF Image Extensions and the HEVC Video Extensions from the Microsoft Store, then restart Photos (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/photos/photos-app-video-editor-error-can-t-view-this-file-type). The HEIF one is free; check the Store listing for the HEVC one, which may carry a small charge.
- Android. Google’s list of supported media formats shows HEIF decoding since Android 8.0 (https://developer.android.com/media/platform/supported-formats), and the Android Open Source Project says devices running Android 10 support HEIC. Older phones, and apps with their own image viewer, may still show nothing.
- Websites and forms. Many job, exam and government portals accept only JPG or PNG, and either reject a .HEIC file or accept it and fail to show a preview.
- Email and messaging. A HEIC attachment can reach a PC or an older phone as a blank icon. JPG is the one photo format you can expect everyone to open.
Licensing is part of the reason. HEVC is covered by patents that are licensed individually or through patent pools, which is why some systems charge for HEVC decoding or leave it out.
How to stop your iPhone shooting HEIC
Apple’s support page (https://support.apple.com/en-us/116944) describes two settings, and they do different jobs:
- Settings → Camera → Formats → Most Compatible. New photos are saved as JPEG and videos as H.264. High Efficiency switches back; Apple calls them “the space-saving HEIF and HEVC formats”. The option appears only on devices that can capture HEIF, and photos already taken stay HEIC.
- Settings → Apps → Photos, then scroll to Transfer to Mac or PC: Automatic or Keep Originals (on older iOS, Settings → Photos). This controls what a computer receives over a USB cable, not what the camera records. Apple says that without Keep Originals, media “might be converted to JPEG or H.264” on import.
What does Most Compatible cost in space? Apple calls HEIF space-saving but gives no percentage, so we will not invent one. Our only figure is from the test below, where one photo converted to JPG at quality 90 came out about a quarter larger than its HEIC. Expect the library to grow faster; the Data Storage Calculator turns file sizes into gigabytes for your phone or cloud plan.
Automatic leaves the iPhone to decide whether a converted copy is needed, and Apple says only that media “might” be converted, so check what arrives. Keep Originals gives exact copies for a backup, which you can convert here afterwards.
Quality and file size after converting
The HEIC was compressed when the phone took it, and making a JPG compresses the decoded pixels again, so a little more detail is lost. At the default quality the loss is very small, but a JPG made from a HEIC is never a better picture than the HEIC.
It is usually bigger too, because HEVC holds the same look in fewer bytes than JPG can. We measured a real 12.8-megapixel photo (3200 × 4000 pixels), saved as a 1.12 MB HEIC, converted with this tool in Chrome on Windows. PSNR (peak signal-to-noise ratio) measures how closely the JPG matches the decoded HEIC; higher is closer.
- Quality 95: 1.75 MB, 50.5 dB.
- Quality 90, the default: 1.41 MB, 48.4 dB.
- Quality 80: 1.03 MB, 44.0 dB, slightly smaller than the HEIC.
- Quality 70: 0.65 MB, 40.4 dB.
- For comparison, WebP at quality 85 came to 0.78 MB and PNG to 8.1 MB.
The conversion at quality 90 took 2.3 seconds, 0.45 of them decoding the HEIC. A 12-megapixel test HEIC full of fine grain, the hardest kind of picture to compress, took 6.4 seconds.
Choose 90 for photos you keep, print or may edit; 80 for sharing, where a smaller file matters more than detail nobody zooms into; 95 before heavy editing; 70 when an inbox or form is strict. If a portal sets a limit in kilobytes, convert at 90 and then use Compress Image, which finds the highest quality that fits. Our guide to compressing a photo to 20, 50, 100 or 200 KB explains the method.
Keeping or removing the date, camera and location
An iPhone photo carries EXIF details: when it was taken, the phone model and camera settings and, if location is on for the camera, the GPS position, often precise enough to point to a street address. Anyone who receives the file can read them.
Keep photo details (date, camera, location) is off by default, and the converted files then contain no GPS position, date or phone model. We checked our outputs byte by byte and with an independent image library, and found no EXIF block and no location.
Switch it on when the details help you: moving photos into a new library, backing up, or keeping them sorted by the date taken. The EXIF details, GPS included, are then copied into JPG output. PNG and WebP files never carry them, so pick JPG if keeping them matters.
Orientation is handled either way. Phones often store a photo sideways with a note saying which way is up; the tool turns the pixels upright and resets the note, so no program turns the photo twice. It also drops the small preview image inside EXIF, which would otherwise show the unconverted picture.
HDR, wide colour and why a sunset may look flatter
Photos from recent phones can contain colours outside the standard range, in a wider one called Display P3, and some are HDR, with brighter highlights and deeper shadows than an ordinary picture. A JPG, as nearly every program reads it, is 8-bit sRGB. So the tool converts P3 colours into sRGB and brings 10-bit HDR photos down to 8-bit standard dynamic range (SDR), a step called tone mapping. Both are listed in the report.
Most photos look the same afterwards. Those that used the extra range, such as a vivid sunset, neon or sunlight on water, may glow on an HDR-capable screen in the original but not in the JPG, because the brightest highlights are pulled into normal range and a few very saturated colours move to the nearest one sRGB can show.
If the HDR effect matters, keep the HEIC as your master copy and share the JPG. We have not tested how particular apps display HDR, so compare both on the screen you care about. As a check on the conversion itself, our converted test photos matched libheif’s own reference decode at 42 to 48 dB PSNR.
Live Photos, bursts and multi-image files
A Live Photo is a still plus a short video. Apple’s Photos guide for the Mac says an exported Live Photo becomes “two separate files: a still-image file and a video file” (https://support.apple.com/guide/photos/export-photos-videos-slideshows-and-memories-pht6e157c5f/mac). In a folder copied off an iPhone, the still is usually the HEIC and the motion a .MOV file beside it.
This tool converts pictures, not video, so .MOV files are skipped and counted in a notice. Each still becomes an ordinary JPG without the motion; keep the .MOV if you want that too.
One HEIF file can also hold several images. The tool then converts the primary image, the one marked as the main picture, and the report says the file held more. Phones differ in how they store bursts; where each shot is its own file, each converts like any other photo.
HEIC to PNG or WebP instead
PNG is lossless: it keeps every decoded pixel. The price is size, as our 1.12 MB test HEIC became an 8.1 MB PNG, and photos with more fine detail go higher. Choose it when an editing or design program will recompress the image anyway, so it is compressed only once. For sending or storing photos it is the wrong choice.
WebP makes smaller files than JPG at a similar look: in our measurement the same photo was 0.78 MB as WebP at quality 85, against 1.41 MB as JPG at 90. It suits a website or online shop you run, and is a poor choice for forms, older programs or anyone who may not open it. When in doubt, use JPG. The Image Converter covers every other pair, AVIF included, and PDF vs JPG vs PNG explains which format suits which job.
Converting hundreds of photos at once
There is no cap on how many photos you add or how large they are. Photos are converted one at a time and each is released before the next, so 500 photos need no more working memory than the largest one. In our test, 100 HEIC photos of 1600 × 1200 pixels converted in 77.5 seconds, about 0.78 seconds each, with details kept, and the page held 17 MB of script memory afterwards.
Each photo is unpacked into memory to be converted, so the tool sets a pixel budget per image: about 16 to 24 megapixels on phones and iPads, about 50 on computers. A larger photo is reduced to fit first, and its report says so. Ordinary 12-megapixel iPhone photos fit every budget.
For a big batch, Download all (ZIP) saves one file with the original names instead of hundreds of downloads the browser may pause to ask about. If a phone struggles, work in a few hundred at a time. Change the quality or format afterwards and the button reads “Apply to N images”, redoing only what changed. The Internet Download Time Calculator estimates how long a large ZIP takes to send.
Built-in ways to convert HEIC on a Mac, PC, Android phone or iPhone
You may not need a website at all. These are the built-in routes, with menu paths from each maker’s help pages where we could confirm them:
- Mac, Preview: open the photo, choose File → Export, then JPEG from the Format pop-up menu, with a quality slider (https://support.apple.com/guide/preview/convert-image-file-types-prvw1012/mac).
- Mac, Photos: select the photos, choose File → Export → Export [number] Photos, and set Photo Kind to JPEG (https://support.apple.com/guide/photos/export-photos-videos-slideshows-and-memories-pht6e157c5f/mac).
- Mac, Finder: select the files, open Quick Actions and choose Convert Image, then a format and size (https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/perform-quick-actions-in-the-finder-on-mac-mchl97ff9142/mac). The page does not say which macOS version added it, so an older Mac may lack it.
- Windows, Photos: with the HEIF and HEVC extensions installed, Photos opens HEIC. Third-party guides describe saving a copy in another format, but the Microsoft page we checked does not, so we give no path.
- Google Photos: it accepts .heic and .heif uploads (https://support.google.com/photos/answer/6193313). Its help pages we read do not say whether a download comes back as JPG, so do not count on it.
- iPhone, sharing: Apple says a photo sent by AirDrop, Messages or email to a device that may lack HEIF support “might automatically be shared in a more compatible format, such as JPEG”, while iCloud Photos keeps the original (https://support.apple.com/en-us/116944). Emailing yourself can work, but it is not guaranteed.
The built-in routes suit a handful of photos; this page suits a computer that cannot open HEIC, hundreds of photos, or removing the location on the way. To turn the converted photos into one document, use JPG to PDF.
Your data
Only your choices are remembered, the output format, quality and whether details are kept, in this browser’s local storage, so the page opens as you left it. Your photos, their names and details, and the converted files stay in the tab’s memory and are gone when you close it. There is no account and no history. Clearing this site’s data in your browser removes the saved choices too.
General information about the HEIC and JPG formats. Menu names and settings on iPhone, Mac, Windows and Android change between versions, so check the maker’s current help page if a path differs on your device.