What a HEIC file is
HEIC is Apple’s name for photos stored in HEIF, the High Efficiency Image File Format, with the picture compressed by HEVC, the same codec used for modern video. Apple switched its cameras to it with iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra, and says HEIF uses less storage than JPEG while preserving the same visual quality.
A HEIC file is a container, so besides the photo it can hold a thumbnail, a depth map from Portrait mode or several frames. The converter picks the primary image, the one your Photos app shows, and turns that into the JPG.
Why HEIC photos need converting to JPG
Outside Apple’s own devices, HEIC support is patchy. Windows only opens the files after two add-ons from the Microsoft Store, the HEIF Image Extension and the paid HEVC Video Extensions; Chrome, Edge and Firefox cannot display HEIC at all, and many upload forms, print shops, older Android phones and editing programs reject it.
JPG has none of those problems. Converting HEIC to JPG costs a little efficiency, but the result opens in every app, attaches to every form and prints anywhere, which is usually what matters when a photo leaves your phone.
How the HEIC to JPG conversion works in your browser
Each file is identified by its first bytes, so a HEIC photo that was renamed to .jpg is still recognized. Safari decodes HEIC natively; in Chrome, Edge and Firefox the page loads libheif, the open-source HEIF decoder, compiled to WebAssembly. It is about 1.4 MB and downloads once, the first time you convert a HEIC file.
The decoded photo is drawn onto a canvas and saved as a JPG at the quality you choose. Everything runs on your device, so there is no upload queue and no daily limit; a 12-megapixel iPhone photo decodes in under a second on a typical laptop.
Colors that match your iPhone
iPhone cameras record in Display P3, a wider color space than the sRGB that most screens, browsers and printers assume for a JPG. Decoded naively, P3 photos come out slightly washed out, with duller reds, greens and skin tones.
The converter reads the color profile inside each HEIC file and, for Display P3 photos, converts the colors to sRGB before saving. In our test the difference was large: a red that should be 255, 40, 30 came out as 233, 66, 48 without the conversion and 253, 41, 29 with it.
Choosing a JPG quality
The default of 92 percent keeps photos visually identical to the HEIC originals and suits printing and further editing. For email, messaging or a website, 80 to 85 percent gives noticeably smaller files that still look clean on screens.
Expect JPGs a little larger than the HEIC files: HEVC compresses better, so JPG needs more bytes for the same picture. In our test, a 12-megapixel iPhone photo of 2.9 MB became a 3.4 MB JPG at 92 percent. If a form limits file size, the free image compressor can shrink the JPG to a target such as 500 KB.
Stop your iPhone from saving HEIC
To take JPGs from the start, open Settings, then Camera, then Formats, and choose Most Compatible instead of High Efficiency. It only affects new photos; everything already in your library stays HEIC, which is where a converter like this one helps.
When you copy photos to a computer, Settings, then Apps, then Photos has a Transfer to Mac or PC option. Automatic converts photos to JPEG for computers that need it, while Keep Originals copies the HEIC files unchanged. Apple also notes that AirDrop, Messages and email may send a more compatible format to devices that lack HEIF support.
Other ways to turn HEIC into JPG
On a Mac, Preview converts one photo at a time: open it, choose File, then Export, and pick JPEG as the format. The Photos app can export several at once with File, then Export, and JPEG as the photo kind. On Windows, programs such as Paint can save a HEIC photo as JPG once the HEIF and HEVC extensions are installed.
Those routes work well for a few pictures on your own computer. The converter on this page needs no extensions, runs the same way on Windows, Mac, Linux and ChromeOS, and handles a hundred photos in one go, which helps on a work laptop where you cannot install anything.
Live Photos, metadata and multiple images
A Live Photo is a still HEIC image plus a short video saved separately. The converter turns the still into a JPG; the motion part is a MOV file and is not an image, so it is not included.
The new JPG is written without EXIF data, so the camera model, capture date and GPS location are dropped. That is a privacy bonus when you share photos publicly; keep the HEIC originals if you need their dates and places.
When a HEIC file will not convert
A file that was cut short during a download, or a video saved with a .heic name, cannot be decoded, and the list shows an error next to it. Exporting the photo again from the Photos app usually fixes damaged files.
Very large panoramas can fail on phones, because mobile browsers limit how many pixels a canvas may hold, often around 16 megapixels on iPhones. Open the page on a laptop or desktop for those, where the HEIC to JPG conversion has far more room.