HEIC Converter

How to Convert HEIC to Any Format

1. Upload Your HEIC Files: Click "+ Add Files" or drag and drop straight from your iPhone, Photos export, or a folder of AirDropped images. Batch conversion is supported, so you can drop dozens of HEIC files at once.
2. Pick the Image File Extension: Choose your output from the dropdown — JPG (the default) for universal sharing, PNG for lossless editing, WebP for the web, or TIFF, GIF, BMP, AVIF, ICO, and more.
3. Tune Quality and Resolution (Optional): Open Advanced Options to set the Quality Preset ("Very High (Recommended)" is the default), cap a Specific file size, scale the Image resolution, or pick a background Color for formats that don't keep transparency.
4. Convert and Download: Click Convert. Files are uploaded over an encrypted connection, processed on our servers, and deleted automatically after one hour — no sign-up, no watermark, never shared.

Why Convert HEIC at All?

HEIC is what your iPhone saves by default. Since iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra (2017), Apple's camera writes photos in the High Efficiency Image Format (HEIF) container, encoded with the HEVC / H.265 codec, under the .heic extension. Apple's own documentation puts the trade-off plainly: HEIF "offers better compression than JPEG... so it uses less storage space on your devices and iCloud Photos, while preserving the same visual quality." In practice a HEIC photo is roughly 40-50% smaller than the same shot saved as JPEG.

The catch is reach. HEIC is an Apple-first format, and it does not open everywhere a JPG does:

• Windows doesn't decode .heic out of the box. Windows 10 and 11 need the free "HEIF Image Extensions" plus a separate, paid "HEVC Video Extensions" package from the Microsoft Store, because the image data inside a .heic file is HEVC-compressed. Without the HEVC piece installed, the HEIF extension can't read the file.
• The web mostly can't display HEIC. No major desktop browser decodes it natively — uploading a HEIC photo to an older CMS, a job-application portal, or a print-shop site often fails outright.
• Email and chat to non-Apple recipients frequently land as a file the other person can't preview.

Converting once, to a format the destination understands, removes all of that friction. The most common move is HEIC to JPG for universal sharing, which is why JPG is the default on this page. Reach for PNG when you need a lossless, edit-ready copy; WebP when you want a small file for a modern website; and TIFF when the photo is headed to print.

One thing to know before you convert: HEIC can store more than a plain photo. It can hold a 10-bit or higher color depth, an alpha (transparency) channel, depth maps, and even short image sequences like a Live Photo or burst. Flattening to 8-bit JPG discards the extra color precision and any transparency, while PNG and TIFF preserve transparency and keep 8-bit-or-deeper color, so they're the better choice when fidelity matters more than file size.

Popular HEIC Conversions

• HEIC to JPG — smaller photos that open everywhere
• HEIC to PNG — lossless, transparency-safe, edit-ready
• HEIC to WebP — small, web-ready images
• HEIC to TIFF — print and archival quality
• HEIC to GIF — simple graphics and short animations
• HEIC to BMP — uncompressed bitmap for legacy software

Which Output Format Should You Pick?

HEIC vs JPG vs PNG vs WebP at a Glance

JPG wins on raw compatibility, PNG wins on lossless editing and transparency, WebP wins on size-to-quality for the web, and HEIC wins on storage efficiency inside the Apple ecosystem — which is exactly why your phone keeps it and you convert it on the way out.

Will Converting HEIC Lose Quality?

It depends on the target. HEIC to JPG and HEIC to WebP (lossy) re-encode the image, so a small, usually invisible amount of detail is discarded — keep the Quality Preset at "Very High (Recommended)" and the result stays visually transparent for almost every photo. HEIC to PNG and HEIC to TIFF are lossless on the pixel data they keep, so they don't add compression artifacts, though converting an HEVC-compressed source can't recover detail the original HEIC encoding already removed. Whatever you pick, you're decoding the photo once and re-saving it once, so there's no compounding generation loss unless you keep re-converting the output.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why won't my HEIC photos open on Windows or Android?

HEIC is Apple's default photo format, and the image inside the file is compressed with the HEVC (H.265) codec, which most non-Apple systems don't ship a decoder for. On Windows 10 and 11 you need both the free "HEIF Image Extensions" and the separate, paid "HEVC Video Extensions" from the Microsoft Store. Android support is patchy and depends on the device, gallery app, and OS version. Converting HEIC to JPG or PNG sidesteps all of that — the output opens with no extra software anywhere.

Should I convert HEIC to JPG or to PNG?

Convert to JPG when the goal is sharing: it's the smallest format that opens everywhere, ideal for email, messaging, web uploads, and forms. Convert to PNG when you plan to edit the image, need a transparent background preserved, or want a lossless copy with no compression artifacts. JPG flattens the photo to 8-bit and drops transparency; PNG keeps 8-bit-or-deeper color and the alpha channel.

Does converting HEIC keep my photo's EXIF data and GPS location?

EXIF metadata carries through when the target format supports it. HEIC to JPG, HEIC to WebP, and HEIC to TIFF preserve EXIF tags such as camera model, exposure, date, and GPS coordinates. HEIC to PNG drops most of that, because PNG doesn't carry the standard EXIF block. If you specifically want to remove location data before sharing publicly, converting to PNG is one easy way to strip it.

What happens to a Live Photo or the transparency stored in a HEIC file?

A HEIC file can hold an image sequence (the short clip behind a Live Photo or a burst) plus extras like a depth map and an alpha channel. Converting to a still image format such as JPG, PNG, or TIFF extracts the primary still frame — the motion portion of a Live Photo is not carried into a single JPG. Transparency survives only in formats that support it: PNG, TIFF, WebP, and AVIF keep an alpha channel, while JPG and BMP fill it with a solid background color you can choose in Advanced Options.

Can I convert many HEIC files to one format at once?

Yes. Drop a whole batch of HEIC files, choose a single Image File Extension, and every file converts to that target. Download them individually or as one ZIP from the results screen. A batch of full-resolution iPhone HEIC photos converts to JPG in a few seconds each on our servers.

Is HEIC the same as HEIF, and which one does my iPhone use?

HEIF (High Efficiency Image File Format) is the ISO/IEC 23008-12 container standard, finalized in 2015. HEIC is the specific variant of that container whose images are encoded with the HEVC codec — and it's what Apple's camera writes, using the .heic extension, on iPhone 7 and later running iOS 11 or newer. So every HEIC file is a HEIF file, but not every HEIF file is HEIC. This converter accepts the .heic files your iPhone produces.

How do I stop my iPhone from saving HEIC in the first place?

On the phone, open Settings, go to Camera, then Formats, and switch from "High Efficiency" to "Most Compatible." New photos will then save as JPG. That trades away the storage savings HEIC gives you, and it won't change the HEIC photos already in your library — for those, converting here is the quickest fix. If you only need a few images in a shareable format, it's usually easier to keep "High Efficiency" on and convert the specific photos you're sending.

Are my HEIC files uploaded to a public server?

Conversion runs on our servers, and files aren't published to a public bucket or shared with third parties. For the most common single-direction jobs you can also use the dedicated HEIC to JPG and HEIC to PNG pages, or compress an existing photo in place with the Image Compressor.