Convert HEIC to JPG

In 2017 Apple switched the iPhone camera from JPG to HEIC, a format built on the same compression as modern video. It stores a photo in roughly half the space at the same visual quality, which is why your phone holds so many more pictures than it used to.

The catch appears the moment the photo leaves the Apple world. macOS and iOS decode HEIC at the operating system level, so everything on your phone and Mac just works. Windows does not, unless you buy Microsoft's HEIF Image Extensions from the Microsoft Store. Android support is inconsistent. Plenty of upload forms reject the file outright.

So the photo that looks perfectly normal on the phone that took it becomes unopenable the second you email it to a colleague. Converting to JPG removes the problem for good, because JPG has been readable by essentially every device since the 1990s.

Almost every HEIC is a photograph, and JPG is built for photographs. Its compression suits the gradual color changes in a real scene, so the file stays small while looking the same to the eye.

PNG is lossless, which sounds better and usually is not what you want here. A 2 MB iPhone photo converted to PNG can land around 15 MB without looking any different, because PNG stores every pixel exactly rather than compressing them intelligently.

Choose PNG when you want a lossless working copy, for instance an iPhone screenshot full of text, or an image heading into a design tool. Our HEIC to PNG converter does that. For sharing a photo, JPG is the right answer.

A JPG converted from HEIC is usually about twice the size of the original, and people often assume something has gone wrong. Nothing has.

HEIC exists specifically to beat JPG on file size. Converting back gives up that efficiency in exchange for a file every piece of software can read. That trade is the entire point, and for a photo you are emailing or uploading it is almost always worth making.

The conversion redraws the image, so EXIF metadata is not carried across. The capture date, camera settings and GPS coordinates are all left behind.

For a photo you are about to send someone, that is usually a benefit rather than a loss, because the location where you took it does not travel with the file. If you need the metadata kept, export the photo as JPG on the phone itself instead, using Settings, then Camera, then Formats, then Most Compatible.

Unlike most HEIC converters, this one sends nothing to a server. The decoder runs inside your browser, reads the file from your own device, and writes the JPG there too.

That matters more for photos than for most files. Camera roll pictures are personal, and the usual converter uploads them to a machine you know nothing about. Here you can disconnect your internet once the page has loaded and the tool keeps working, which is the simplest proof that nothing is leaving your computer.

The one thing that does need the network is the decoder itself, around two megabytes, fetched the first time you convert. HEIC is the only format on this site that needs it, because no browser outside Safari can read HEIC on its own.