HEIF to HEIF Converter

Why Would Anyone Convert HEIF to HEIF?

Because this is not a passthrough, and it was never going to be. A HEIF holds an HEVC-coded picture, and there is no way to change its size, its dimensions or its quality without decoding that picture and encoding it again. That is exactly what happens here: your file is decoded on our servers and a completely new HEVC encode is written. Nothing is copied across untouched, and the output is not bit-identical to the input even when you change no settings at all.

So the useful question is what you get in return. Three answers cover almost every real case:

• You want the image smaller in pixels. The Image resolution group is the reason to be on this page — presets, percentages, an exact width, or a full width by height.
• You want it under a specific size. Specific file size takes a ceiling in bytes, kilobytes or megabytes and works the encoder down towards it.
• You want a plainer HEIF. Some applications are fussy about which HEIF variants they will open. Re-writing the file through a single, conventional HEVC encode sometimes clears that up when nothing else will.

What you should not expect is a free size reduction. Leave every setting alone and you get a file within a fraction of a percent of the one you started with, plus one generation of lossy re-encoding. The numbers below make that concrete.

What a Re-encode Actually Costs and Saves

Measured on a 1920x1080 HEIF of 1.49 MB, re-encoded through the same tools this page uses:

Your own file will differ — a smooth studio portrait compresses very differently from a detailed landscape — but the shape of the table holds. Resolution is a much cheaper lever than quality: dropping to 1280x720 saved more than moving from Very High to Medium did, and it did so without adding compression artefacts to the pixels that remain.

How to Convert HEIF to HEIF

1. Upload Your HEIF File: Drag the .heif onto the page or click "+ Add Files" to browse. This page's uploader takes the .heif spelling — iPhone photos named .heic belong on HEIC to HEIC. Several images can be queued and share one set of settings.
2. Pick a Quality Preset: Under Image Compression, Quality Preset is preselected on Very High (Recommended). Seven steps run from Highest down to Lowest, and the table above shows what each does to the file.
3. Or Set a Size Ceiling, and Change Image resolution: Specific file size replaces the preset with a target in bytes, kilobytes or megabytes, with an Auto Scale toggle that lets the encoder reduce dimensions when quality alone cannot reach the number. Image resolution is preselected on Keep original; Resolution Percentage, Preset Resolutions, an exact Width, an exact Height, or Width x Height are the alternatives.
4. Convert and Download: Click "Convert" and save the new .heif. Files upload over an encrypted connection, are processed on our servers, and are deleted automatically after a few hours. No sign-up, no watermark.

What Survives the Round Trip

That EXIF row is worth pausing on if you are sending the picture to someone. Camera model, timestamp and GPS position all come through the re-encode intact, so if the point of the exercise was to sanitise a photo before sharing it, this page does not do that — remove the metadata in a dedicated tool afterwards.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this page or the HEIF compressor the right one for making a file smaller?

They give you different controls over the same encoder. This page offers the seven-step Quality Preset ladder and a Specific file size target. Compress HEIF instead offers a continuous Image Quality (%) slider and a Target file size (%) mode that expresses the goal as a share of the original — which is what you want when you are batching a folder of differently sized photos. If size reduction is the whole objective, start there; come here when you want a named preset or a fixed byte ceiling.

Why did Highest give me exactly the same file as Very High?

Because the encoder quantises the quality value onto its own internal scale, and the top of the range collapses. In our measurements every setting from Highest down to Very High produced a byte-identical output on the same source image — the two presets land on the same encode. The first rung that genuinely changes anything below Highest is High, which came out about 10% smaller. There is therefore no reason to choose Highest over Very High on this target.

If I change nothing, do I get my file back unchanged?

No, and this is the single most important thing to understand about a same-format conversion. The picture is decoded and re-encoded regardless of what the settings say, so you receive a new file that is very slightly different from the one you uploaded and very slightly worse. In our test it came back at 100% of the original size — all of the cost, none of the benefit. If nothing needs to change, do not run the conversion.

How many times can I re-encode before it visibly degrades?

Fewer than you would like, and there is no safe number. Each pass discards a little more, and because HEVC's intra coding is efficient, the damage hides for several generations and then appears all at once in smooth gradients and skin tones. The rule that works is to keep one original and always start from it, rather than re-editing an export. If you have already been through several rounds, going back to the camera file will look better than anything a further pass can do.

Does the conversion keep transparency?

Yes. HEIF stores an alpha channel as an auxiliary image item alongside the main picture, and that structure is carried through the re-encode without being flattened onto a background colour. This is the main advantage over routing a transparent image through JPEG, which has no alpha channel at all and must composite onto something solid.

Will my GPS location be removed?

No — EXIF is retained, including GPS coordinates, camera make and capture timestamp. We confirmed this by tagging a file, running it through the conversion, and reading the tags back out of the result. If your reason for converting was to strip identifying metadata before sharing a photo, this page will not do it; use a metadata-removal tool on the output, or check whether the platform you are uploading to strips EXIF itself, as most social networks do.

My HEIF will not open in some application — will re-converting fix it?

Sometimes. HEIF is a container standard that permits several payloads and a good deal of structural variety, and not every reader handles every variant. Passing the file through a single, conventional HEVC encode produces a plainer file than many cameras and editors write, which occasionally satisfies a fussy importer. It is worth one attempt. If it still fails, the application probably wants the .heic extension — try HEIF to HEIC — or does not support the format at all, in which case HEIF to JPG always works.

What if my file is a burst, a sequence or has a depth map?

The output is a single image item. HEIF can hold multiple pictures, auxiliary images and depth information in one file, but this conversion writes one conventional still, so anything beyond the primary picture is not carried into the result. That is occasionally the point — collapsing an awkward multi-item file into something ordinary — but if the extra items matter, keep the original.

Can I use this to change the pixel dimensions of a batch of photos?

Yes, and it is the strongest reason to be on this page. Queue as many .heif files as you like and they all take the same Image resolution setting — a preset height, a percentage, or an exact width with the height following the aspect ratio. Resolution Percentage is the safest choice for a mixed batch, since a fixed pixel width applied to portrait and landscape images together rarely gives what you wanted. The Image Resizer is the alternative if you want to see the result before committing.

Will the output play nicely on Windows or Android?

Same as any HEIF: it depends on the reader. Apple platforms handle it natively, Windows needs Microsoft's HEIF Image Extensions from the Microsoft Store, Android support varies by device, and no browser renders it. Re-encoding does not change that — the format's reach is the format's reach. When the file has to open anywhere at all, HEIF to JPG or HEIF to PNG is the answer, and HEIF to AVIF is the one modern format with genuinely broad browser support.

What happens to my uploaded images?

They travel over an encrypted connection, are converted on our servers, and both the uploads and the results are deleted automatically after a few hours. Nothing is shared or made public, no account is required, and there is no watermark on the output.