What is HEIC?
HEIC is the file extension for HEIF images stored in the “High Efficiency Image Container”. With iOS 11 Apple switched the iPhone and iPad camera default from JPG to HEIC for one reason: efficiency. HEIC typically takes roughly half the space of JPG at similar quality.
Why will it not open or upload?
HEIC is based on the HEVC video codec, which for licensing and compatibility reasons is not built into every system. Windows may need an extra codec, and many Android apps, government and application forms, shop admin panels and print services reject HEIC. Converting to JPG is the practical fix.
How to convert
- Open the HEIC to JPG converter.
- Drop your photos (or a whole folder) in.
- Convert and download the ZIP. For a smaller result on the web use HEIC to WebP; for lossless output use HEIC to PNG.
Shooting JPG from the start
On iPhone go to Settings → Camera → Formats and choose “Most Compatible”; new photos are then saved as JPG. Existing photos stay HEIC, and this tool converts them in bulk. When importing to a computer, the Photos app’s automatic transfer setting can also convert to JPG.
Quality and privacy
HEIC is already lossy, so when converting to JPG keep quality between 85 and 92. Conversion runs in your browser and your personal photos are not sent to a server. Location (GPS) EXIF data is removed from the output. The HEIC decoder is a WebAssembly build of the LGPL-licensed libheif library.