HEIC photos from your iPhone — how to open and convert them to JPG

You copy photos from your iPhone to a computer and suddenly hit a wall: Windows shows a blank icon, a website form rejects the file, and a friend says they received something they simply can't open. The culprit is an extension you may not have noticed before — .heic. It isn't an error or a corrupted file. It's just the format your iPhone has been saving photos in by default for years.

The good news: turning HEIC into a regular JPG takes a few seconds, and the photo itself loses essentially nothing. Let's go through where this format came from, why so many programs dislike it, and the easiest way to convert it — including how to set your iPhone to shoot JPG straight away.

What HEIC actually is

HEIC stands for High Efficiency Image Container — a file built on the HEIF encoding format (High Efficiency Image Format). In plain terms, it's a modern container for photos that Apple introduced in iOS 11 (back in 2017) as the default camera output on iPhones and iPads.

At its core, HEIC uses the same kind of compression as HEVC (H.265) video. That lets a file hold the same photo at roughly half the size of a JPG, with similar — often better — quality. On top of that it supports things old JPG can't:

• 10-bit color depth (smoother gradients, less banding in skies);
• transparency and depth maps (needed for things like Portrait mode);
• multiple frames in a single file — which is how Live Photos work.

From Apple's point of view it's a sensible choice: phone cameras keep getting better, and HEIC lets you store more shots without filling up storage. The trouble only starts once those files leave Apple's world.

Why Windows and websites won't open HEIC

The format is technically excellent, but relatively new and — importantly — covered by patent licensing. That's why many programs and services don't support it out of the box. Hence the usual situations:

• Windows only opens HEIC after you install a separate extension from the Microsoft Store (and some of those cost money). Without it, the preview just won't render.
• Forms and websites — recruitment platforms, government portals, shops, forums — usually accept only JPG and PNG. A .heic file gets rejected before it's even uploaded.
• Editors and older graphics software simply don't know how to read it.
• Sharing with people outside Apple — a recipient on Android or an older laptop often sees a file they can't preview at all.

The real issue isn't the iPhone itself — it's that the rest of the world still runs on JPG. So the simplest fix is to convert the photo to a format everything understands.

How to convert HEIC to JPG in your browser

You don't need to install any program or system add-on for this. A HEIC to JPG converter is enough: you open the page, drop in the file from your iPhone, and a moment later download a JPG that opens everywhere.

But the most important part isn't obvious at first glance. The entire conversion happens locally, in your browser — the photo is never uploaded anywhere. The file is decoded and saved on your own device, and the server doesn't even receive a copy. That's a very different situation from many classic online converters, where you have to "upload" your photo to someone else's server and hope it gets deleted afterward.

Step by step it looks like this:

1. Open the HEIC to JPG tool and add your file — drag it in from a folder or pick it off your drive.
2. Set the JPG quality if you need to (more on that below).
3. Download the finished .jpg and use it anywhere HEIC was being rejected.

The whole thing takes a dozen or so seconds per photo, and only a little longer for a batch.

What happens to quality during conversion

Here's a common worry: if JPG is the "worse" format, won't the photo degrade? In practice the difference is invisible to the naked eye, as long as you keep a sensible save quality.

It helps to understand the mechanism. HEIC and JPG are two different forms of lossy compression — both discard information the eye won't notice anyway. During conversion the photo is decoded from HEIC and re-encoded as JPG. That's one additional encoding pass, which means:

• At quality around 85–92% the result is visually indistinguishable from the original.
• The JPG will usually be larger in size than the source HEIC — that's normal, since JPG is simply a less efficient format. It's the price of compatibility with everything.
• There's no point dropping quality very low "just in case" — visible artifacts on smooth surfaces only start appearing below ~70%.

If you care less about compatibility and more about the smallest size at good quality, modern WebP can be an alternative — but that's a separate topic. For comparing formats, the guide JPG, PNG, WebP or AVIF — which image format to choose is worth a look.

What about EXIF data and the photo's date

Along with the photo, your iPhone stores EXIF metadata: the capture date, camera model, settings, and often GPS location too. It's worth knowing what happens to these during conversion.

A solid converter can carry the key EXIF data over into the new JPG — above all the date and time of capture, plus the orientation. That matters for two reasons: first, your photos will line up chronologically in the gallery instead of jumping to the end with today's date; second, correct orientation means portrait shots won't end up sideways.

There's a flip side, though — privacy. EXIF can contain the exact GPS coordinates of where a photo was taken. If you're sending it to a stranger or posting it publicly, it's wise to decide consciously whether that data should stay. Some tools let you strip it out at the same time.

How to set your iPhone to shoot JPG straight away

If HEIC trips you up regularly, you can go to the source and switch the camera to save photos in the old, compatible format. Apple planned for this:

1. Open Settings on your iPhone.
2. Go to Camera.
3. Choose Formats.
4. Select Most Compatible instead of High Efficiency.

From then on the camera will save new photos as JPG (and video as H.264). That's handy if you frequently move photos to Windows or pass them on to others.

You should be aware of the cost, though: "Most Compatible" means larger files and faster-filling phone storage, and some features (like recording in higher modes) require "High Efficiency". Many people pick a middle path — they keep HEIC to save space and only convert individual photos when they actually need to leave the iPhone.

A small tip: if you send photos via AirDrop or Mail to another iPhone, conversion is unnecessary — Apple handles compatibility within its own ecosystem. The problem mainly arises when going "outside".

Converting many iPhone photos at once

A single file is one thing, but after a holiday hundreds of photos come off the phone — and nobody is going to convert them one by one. This is where batch processing comes in.

Instead of opening each photo separately, you can run a whole batch of HEIC files through conversion at once and download the result as a single ZIP archive. It works exactly like the single-file case — except you add dozens of photos at once, set the quality once, and the whole lot is processed in your browser.

And again it's worth stressing the key point at this scale: the entire gallery is processed on your own device. With an online converter on someone else's server, uploading a few hundred private holiday photos would mean sending them off into the unknown. Here they never leave the browser, and once you're done they simply vanish from memory.

If you also want to slim the photos down — say they're headed for a website or an email — the guide how to reduce image file size without losing quality will help.

Privacy: why in-browser conversion matters

Phone photos are often the most personal things you have — kids, documents, receipts, shots from inside your home. Uploading them to some random "conversion" service hands control over them to someone whose terms nobody reads.

ImageResizerly takes a different approach: HEIC to JPG conversion happens entirely on the browser side, meaning on your own device. The file isn't sent to a server, isn't stored or indexed there — the tool only holds it in memory, for the duration of the work. The details are in our privacy policy.

This approach has a practical upside too: it works without a connection once the page has loaded, and there's no "how many photos can you upload" limit, because nothing goes anywhere. The conversion is as fast as your own computer — not someone else's server at peak hours.

FAQ

Is there a visible quality drop after converting HEIC to JPG?

At a sensible save quality (85–92%) the difference is practically invisible. Conversion means one additional encoding pass, so as long as you don't push quality very low, the photo looks like the original. The JPG will usually be a bit heavier than the source HEIC.

Will the photo's date and orientation be preserved?

Yes — a good converter carries over the key EXIF data, including the capture date and orientation. That keeps photos in chronological order in your gallery and stops portrait shots from rotating sideways.

Are my photos uploaded anywhere during conversion?

No. In ImageResizerly the whole conversion happens in your browser, on your own device. The file is never sent to any server — which matters especially for private phone photos.

How do I set my iPhone to shoot JPG directly?

Go to Settings › Camera › Formats and choose "Most Compatible" instead of "High Efficiency". From then on the camera saves photos as JPG. The downside is larger files and faster-filling phone storage.

Can I convert many HEIC files at once?

Yes. You can add a whole batch of photos, set the quality once, and download the result as a single ZIP archive. Everything is processed locally in your browser, so even a few hundred photos never leave your device.