The quick answer: convert the HEIC to JPG
You sent an iPhone photo to your own email, opened it on a Windows PC and got an error, a blank thumbnail or a prompt to pick an app. The file ends in .heic, and Windows often cannot open it without extra software. The fastest fix is to turn it into a JPG with HEIC to JPG, because a JPG opens everywhere.
- Open the converter and choose your .heic or .heif files, or drop them on the page. Add as many as you like.
- Leave the quality at 90. It is preselected and looks like the original on most photos.
- Press Convert. The first photo takes longest, because the HEIC decoder loads once.
- Download each JPG from the list, or all of them as one ZIP.
Nothing is uploaded. The photos are decoded and converted inside your browser tab, so a picture of your child or your passport stays on your machine. Outside Safari, a decoder of about 3 MB loads from this site the first time, which is code and not your photos. To check, open the Network tab in your browser's developer tools and convert a photo: you will see the decoder load and a tiny request that only adds one to the site's file counter, and no request carries your photo.
What HEIC is, and why your iPhone uses it
HEIC is a photo file that uses the HEVC video codec inside a container called HEIF. Apple made it the iPhone camera default with iOS 11, and Apple's support page says iPhone 7 and later can capture in it. The reason is size: HEIC stores a photo in less space than JPG.
The catch is that HEVC is a video codec with licensing costs, so few programs include it. At the time of writing, Safari 17 was the first browser version to show HEIC, and Chrome, Edge and Firefox do not. Windows needs extensions from the Microsoft Store to open HEIC. Microsoft's support page names two: the HEIF Image Extensions, which are free, and the HEVC Video Extensions, which cost money. It says you need both even if you only want to look at photos. Store prices and listings change, so check first.
Even with both add-ons, Windows is only half the problem. Many upload forms, online editors and print services have no such add-on, so they reject the file. A JPG works in all of them, which is why converting beats installing.
Convert many HEIC photos at once
A folder from a trip can hold hundreds of photos. Select them all in the file picker, or drop them on the page. They convert several at a time, large photos wait their turn so a phone or small laptop is less likely to run out of memory, and every file shows its own status. Download the JPGs one by one or as a single ZIP.
Photos up to 100 megapixels are accepted, about eight times the size of a 12 megapixel iPhone photo, and there is no cap on how many you add. If a very large batch strains your browser, run it in smaller ones.
A Live Photo is a still picture plus a short video. You can convert the still HEIC file. The video is a separate file and is not included in the JPG.
Keeping quality: JPG, PNG and the quality slider
For viewing, sharing and uploading, JPG is the right target. In the converter's own test, a 12 megapixel iPhone photo (4032 by 3024 pixels) was 2.7 MB as a HEIC and also 2.7 MB as a JPG at quality 90. Apple's own export of the same photo at quality 90 came to 4.7 MB, so the encoder matters as much as the format.
Quality 90 looks like the original on most photos. Smooth skies can start to show visible blocks from about quality 75 down, so stay above that for pictures you care about. If a JPG comes out much bigger than its HEIC, lower the quality a notch, or keep the HEIC for your own library and convert only the copies you send out.
| Convert to | Best for | Size of the 2.7 MB test photo |
|---|---|---|
| JPG at quality 90 | Sharing, uploads, email and everyday viewing | About 2.7 MB |
| PNG | Editing in a program that rejects HEIC, with no extra compression | About 15.7 MB |
HEIC to PNG stores exactly what was decoded from the HEIC, so you can edit and save again without more loss. It cannot bring back detail the phone threw away when it saved the photo, and the file is nearly six times larger in that test. Choose PNG for editing, not for sending.
Colors are handled for you. iPhone photos use the wide Display P3 color range, and the converter turns them into sRGB, so they come out right instead of flat and washed out.
What the JPG keeps and what it drops
- Kept: the picture and its colors, turned the right way up whichever way the phone was held.
- Dropped: the date, camera and location. This data (called EXIF) is not copied from a HEIC, so the JPG no longer says where or when it was taken. That is handy before you share a photo. If you want those details for your own library, keep the HEIC originals.
- Dropped: the extras. The thumbnail, the depth information and a Live Photo's video do not come along. Only the main picture becomes a JPG.
To see exactly what a photo gives away before you send it, read how to remove location data from photos.
Stop getting HEIC in the first place
On current versions of iOS, open Settings, Camera, Formats. Most Compatible saves new photos as JPG and High Efficiency saves them as HEIC. Photos you already took keep the format they were taken in, and JPG photos take more space on the phone.
Apple's support page also says AirDrop, Messages and email may convert photos to JPG for a receiver that cannot read HEIC, and that importing by cable to a PC may convert them unless you choose Keep Originals in the Photos settings. What happens depends on the app and your iOS version. When a photo still arrives as HEIC, convert it on your computer.
What goes wrong, and the fix
- The photo was cut short. A transfer that stopped early leaves a HEIC with missing pieces. Instead of giving you a picture with a green block where the missing tiles should be, the converter refuses the file and says so. Copy the photo from the phone again.
- The JPG is bigger than the HEIC. HEIC is very efficient, so this is normal. Lower the quality, or run the JPG through the image compressor, which also opens HEIC directly and can save JPG, WebP or AVIF.
- A large batch stalls. Phones and older laptops have less memory than a desktop. Convert fewer photos at a time.
- Another tool wants a JPG. Some tools that build PDFs, for example, accept JPG but not HEIC. Convert first, then follow save a picture as a PDF.
What to do next
Converted photos are often still too big for a form or an email. Reduce a photo to 200 KB or less shows how to hit an exact size. Not sure whether you should have chosen JPG, PNG or something newer? JPG vs PNG vs WebP vs AVIF lays out the choice. And if you need to move between formats later, the image converter turns JPG, PNG, WebP and AVIF into each other, in bulk, and opens HEIC too. Need a square for a profile picture? Crop a photo to a circle or exact size shows how.