Convert HEIC iPhone Photos to JPG

You take a photo on your iPhone, send it to a colleague, and they reply: “I can't open this file.” The file is a .heic — Apple's default photo format since iOS 11 — and while it's technically superior to JPEG in several ways, it's a compatibility headache when you need to share photos outside the Apple ecosystem.

What is HEIC?

HEIC stands for High Efficiency Image Container. It's a file format based on the HEVC (H.265) video codec, wrapped in the HEIF (High Efficiency Image Format) container. If that sounds confusing, the simple version is: HEIC is a newer image format that Apple adopted because it compresses photos roughly 50% smaller than JPEG at the same visual quality.

Apple started using HEIC as the default capture format in iOS 11 (September 2017) for all devices with hardware HEVC encoding — which includes every iPhone from the 7 onward. When you take a photo on an iPhone, the file saved to your camera roll is almost certainly a .heic file unless you've manually changed the setting.

Why Apple chose HEIC

• 50% smaller files.A 12 MP photo that would be 4-5 MB as JPEG is typically 2-2.5 MB as HEIC. When you're storing thousands of photos on a 128 GB phone, this matters.
• Better quality at the same size.HEVC encoding preserves more detail than JPEG's DCT-based compression, particularly in gradients and low-contrast areas where JPEG tends to show banding.
• 10-bit color depth.HEIC supports 10 bits per channel (1.07 billion colors) vs. JPEG's 8 bits (16.7 million). This allows smoother gradients and better HDR representation.
• Live Photos and burst storage. The HEIF container can hold multiple images and associated data (depth maps, alpha channels, image sequences) in a single file. This is how Live Photos store both the still and the video clip.
• Non-destructive editing metadata. iOS stores edit instructions (crop, rotation, filters) in the HEIF container alongside the original image. You can revert edits without losing quality.

The compatibility problem

Despite its technical advantages, HEIC isn't universally supported. The HEVC codec is patent-encumbered — licensing fees make it expensive for software developers to include HEIC support. Here's where you'll hit compatibility walls:

• Windows.Windows 10/11 can display HEIC natively, but only if you install the “HEVC Video Extensions” from the Microsoft Store (previously $0.99, now usually free via the manufacturer version). Without it, HEIC files show as blank icons.
• Older Android devices.Android 10+ added HEIF read support, but older devices can't open these files at all.
• Web browsers.Safari has supported HEIC since macOS High Sierra. Chrome and Firefox still don't support HEIC natively in 2026. You can't use HEIC images in an <img> tag and expect them to work cross-browser.
• Web upload forms.Most websites that accept image uploads (social media, e-commerce, job applications, government forms) accept JPEG and PNG. Many reject HEIC outright. You upload your iPhone photo and get an “unsupported format” error.
• Email clients.Outlook and some corporate email systems won't preview HEIC attachments inline. Gmail handles it, but the recipient might not be using Gmail.
• Print services. Online photo printing services (Shutterfly, Snapfish, etc.) generally require JPEG. HEIC uploads are often rejected.

How to convert HEIC to JPG

Option 1: Change your iPhone settings

You can tell your iPhone to capture in JPEG instead of HEIC. Go to Settings > Camera > Formats and select Most Compatible. This switches the capture format to JPEG (and H.264 for video instead of HEVC).

The trade-off: your photos will be roughly twice as large, which means they eat through storage faster and iCloud backups take longer. If you're comfortable with that, it's the simplest fix.

There's also a middle ground: keep shooting in HEIC but set your iPhone to auto-convert when sharing. Go to Settings > Photos and under Transfer to Mac or PC, select Automatic. This converts HEIC to JPEG when you transfer photos via AirDrop, USB, or email. The originals stay as HEIC on your device.

Option 2: Convert on your Mac

If you're on macOS, you can batch-convert HEIC files using Preview: select multiple HEIC files in Finder, open with Preview, Select All (Cmd+A), then File > Export Selected Images. Choose JPEG as the format, pick a quality level, and export.

For command-line users, the sips tool built into macOS handles this: sips -s format jpeg input.heic --out output.jpg. You can batch-convert an entire folder with a simple loop.

Option 3: Convert on Windows

Windows doesn't have a built-in converter. Your options are third-party software or online tools. The Microsoft Photos app can open HEIC files (with the codec installed) and “Save as” to JPEG, but it doesn't support batch conversion.

Option 4: Online conversion tools

Online converters are the fastest option for occasional use. Upload your HEIC file, get back a JPG.

Because HEIC decoding requires the HEVC codec, which browsers don't natively support, HEIC-to-JPG conversion typically has to happen server-side. MakeMyImgs' HEIC to JPG convertersends your file to the conversion server, processes it, and returns the JPG. It's one of the few tools that requires server processing rather than running entirely in your browser, specifically because of the codec limitation.

What about HEIF vs. HEIC?

You might see both .heic and .heif file extensions and wonder what the difference is. Technically, HEIF is the container format and HEIC is the specific variant that uses HEVC compression. In practice:

• .heic — the file uses HEVC compression inside a HEIF container. This is what iPhones produce.
• .heif — the file uses a non-HEVC codec inside the HEIF container (like AV1, which produces .avif files). Less common.

For the purpose of conversion, they're handled the same way. Most conversion tools accept both extensions.

Quality considerations when converting

Converting HEIC to JPEG involves a decode-then-reencode pipeline. The HEIC is decoded to raw pixel data, then that pixel data is encoded as JPEG. Since JPEG is lossy, you're introducing new compression artifacts. A few things to keep in mind:

• Set JPEG quality to 90% or higher.The HEIC original was already compressed, so you're applying lossy compression on top of previously lossy-compressed data. Using high quality (90-95%) minimizes the additional degradation.
• You lose 10-bit color depth.HEIC's 10-bit color gets downsampled to JPEG's 8-bit. For most photos this is invisible, but HDR images with wide color gamuts may show some banding in subtle gradients.
• Metadata is preserved. EXIF data (camera settings, GPS coordinates, date taken) transfers from HEIC to JPEG during conversion. If you want to strip location data for privacy, do that as a separate step.
• Consider WebP instead.If compatibility allows, WebP is a better conversion target than JPEG. It produces smaller files at the same quality and supports features JPEG doesn't (transparency, animation). All modern browsers support WebP.

The future of HEIC

HEIC adoption has been slow outside Apple's ecosystem, largely because of HEVC licensing costs. AVIF — which uses the royalty-free AV1 codec inside the same HEIF container — is emerging as a potential successor. Google has pushed AVIF support in Chrome, and it's now supported in all major browsers. AVIF achieves even better compression than HEIC without the patent baggage.

For now, HEIC remains the practical format for iPhone photos, and JPEG remains the universal format for sharing. Converting between them is a fact of life for anyone who takes photos on an iPhone and shares them outside the Apple ecosystem.

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