Why HEIC files do not always open
HEIC is the high-efficiency format Apple uses for iPhone photos. It keeps files small, but many programs, websites and older devices cannot display it. Converting to JPG gives you a file that opens almost everywhere.
How the conversion actually works
Our engine decodes the full image data stored inside your HEIC file and re-encodes it in your chosen output format - JPEG at a high 92% quality setting, or PNG if you need a fully lossless copy. This is genuine decoding and re-encoding, not a simple file renaming trick, which is why the result opens correctly and displays identically to the original everywhere a standard JPG or PNG is supported.
JPG or PNG?
JPG makes smaller files and is the right choice for photos. PNG is lossless and larger, useful when you need an exact copy of the image.
How to get HEIC photos off your iPhone
If you AirDrop, email or upload photos from an iPhone, they often arrive as .heic files. You can also find them by connecting the phone to a computer and opening the DCIM folder. Upload one photo at a time here (up to 50 MB) and download a JPG or PNG that opens in Windows Photos, Android galleries, Word, and any website upload form.
Stop your iPhone saving HEIC
If you always need JPG, open Settings > Camera > Formats on your iPhone and choose Most Compatible. New photos will then be saved as JPG. Photos you have already taken stay in HEIC, which is what this converter is for.
Why Apple chose HEIC in the first place
HEIC compresses roughly twice as efficiently as JPG at comparable visual quality, letting an iPhone store far more photos in the same amount of storage space - a genuinely useful tradeoff for the phone itself. The downside is a real compatibility gap outside Apple's own ecosystem: HEIC support has historically been inconsistent across Windows versions, many Android devices, and a long list of websites and older software, which is exactly the gap this converter exists to close.
What about Live Photos and photo details?
A Live Photo is a still image plus a short video. Converting it keeps the still picture only, since the short video component is stored as a separate file entirely and isn't part of the HEIC image data itself. The JPG is saved at high quality (92%), so for normal viewing, printing and sharing you will not notice a difference from the original.
Who actually needs this, and why
Anyone who received an iPhone photo by AirDrop, email, or messaging app and needs it in a format their Windows PC, Android phone, or a specific website can actually open. Designers and photo editors who need a lossless PNG starting point from an iPhone photo for further retouching. Online sellers and professionals uploading iPhone photos to a platform that specifically rejects HEIC uploads.
Batch conversion and privacy
You can convert multiple HEIC files in one go, with each photo getting its own download as it finishes. Your photos are processed on our servers over an encrypted connection and deleted automatically shortly after conversion - there's no account required and no email collected at any step.
Picking between JPG and PNG for your specific photo
If the photo is simply going to be viewed, shared, or printed, JPG is the better default - the file will be noticeably smaller, and at this tool's 92% quality setting the visual difference from the original is essentially impossible to spot at normal viewing sizes. If you plan to edit the photo further, especially with multiple rounds of saving, PNG's lossless nature avoids the small, compounding quality loss that repeated JPG saves can introduce over time, which matters more the more editing you plan to do.
Why the file size changes so much after converting
Converting a HEIC photo to PNG typically produces a dramatically larger file than the original, often several times the size, simply because PNG's lossless compression can't match HEIC's much more aggressive, modern compression approach. Converting to JPG instead keeps the size difference far more modest, since JPG's lossy compression is philosophically closer to HEIC's own approach, even though the two formats use different underlying compression techniques entirely.
Working with a large batch of iPhone photos
If you've got a whole camera roll's worth of HEIC photos to convert - after switching phones, cleaning out old storage, or preparing a photo album for someone without an iPhone - converting them one at a time through this tool, with each result downloading individually, handles the task reliably even for a large number of files, without needing any specialized batch-conversion software installed on your computer.
The 50 MB upload limit
This tool accepts files up to 50 MB, which comfortably covers even the largest HEIC photos a modern iPhone produces, including photos taken in ProRAW or at maximum resolution settings. There's no need to pre-compress a large HEIC file before uploading it here - the conversion handles files at that scale without any extra steps required on your part.
A note on HEIF versus HEIC
HEIF is the broader image format standard, and HEIC is specifically Apple's implementation of it - the two terms are often used interchangeably, and both .heic and .heif file extensions work with this converter the same way. If a file from a non-Apple device uses the .heif extension, it converts through exactly the same process as a standard iPhone .heic photo, with no difference in output quality or processing time between the two formats.
Checking your converted photo
Once converted, it's worth opening the result once to confirm it displays correctly and looks sharp - for the vast majority of photos this takes no time at all to confirm, since the conversion preserves the original image's detail faithfully regardless of which output format you ultimately chose for the final downloaded result. This quick check takes only a moment and confirms everything came through exactly as expected before you rely on the converted file anywhere important.