When PNG is the right choice for a HEIC photo
PNG makes sense when the photo is a starting point rather than a finished file. Editors, designers and anyone preparing images for print or compositing want a copy that can be opened, changed and saved again without losing detail each time, which JPG cannot promise.
It also suits pictures with transparency. HEIC can carry an alpha channel, for example in stickers and cut-outs exported from design apps, and PNG keeps it, while JPG has to fill those areas with a solid color.
Lossless means large files
PNG stores every pixel exactly, and photos are full of fine detail, so the files get big. In our test, a 12-megapixel iPhone photo of 2.9 MB became a PNG of about 30 MB, and a 7-megapixel one went from 2.4 MB to 17 MB.
That is fine on a computer with plenty of space, but heavy for email or a website. If you only need to share or post the photo, the HEIC to JPG converter gives a file close to the original size instead.
How the HEIC to PNG converter works
Safari reads HEIC on its own. Everywhere else the page loads libheif, an open-source HEIF decoder compiled to WebAssembly, the first time you add a HEIC file; after that, conversions start immediately, and the photos are decoded in a background worker so the page stays responsive.
Each decoded photo is drawn at full resolution and written as a PNG by your browser’s own encoder. Nothing is uploaded, and nothing about the pixels is approximated or smoothed along the way.
Color profiles and Display P3
Recent iPhones capture in Display P3, a wider color space than sRGB. The converter reads each file’s color profile and converts Display P3 photos to sRGB, the space that design tools, browsers and most printers expect from a PNG, so reds, greens and skin tones keep the look they had on the phone.
Colors far outside sRGB, such as the most saturated neon signs or flowers, are brought to the nearest color sRGB can show. For ordinary photos the difference cannot be seen.
PNG, JPG or keep the HEIC?
Keep the HEIC original as your archive copy: it is the smallest file and holds everything the camera recorded. Make a JPG when the photo needs to be shared, uploaded or printed, and a PNG when it needs to be edited, layered or kept free of compression artifacts.
If you are unsure, convert to PNG for editing, and export the finished result as JPG afterwards. Converting a JPG back to PNG later cannot recover detail that the JPG encoder already removed.
Photos of documents, whiteboards and screens
Many HEIC photos are not scenery at all but pictures of receipts, whiteboards, slides and handwritten notes. For those, PNG is the better target: sharp text and flat backgrounds stay clean, without the faint halos that JPG compression leaves around letters and lines.
A PNG is also the safer base for marking up such a photo, because arrows, highlights and blurred-out details can be added and saved again and again without the text degrading each time the file is re-saved.
Opening HEIC photos in editing software
Some editors can read HEIC directly on some systems, but support depends on the program, its version and the codecs installed on the computer, and plug-ins, online editors and older software often refuse the format. A PNG copy removes the guesswork, because every image editor opens it.
Design and presentation tools are similar. Figma, Canva, Google Slides and word processors accept PNG everywhere, so converting first saves a round of failed uploads when a deadline is close.
Using the PNG files afterwards
The PNGs open in Photoshop, GIMP, Affinity Photo, Figma, Canva, Word, PowerPoint and practically every other program, on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and ChromeOS. No codec or extension is needed, unlike with the original HEIC files on Windows.
Because PNG is lossless, you can crop, retouch and save it as often as you like. When the image is finished, the free image compressor can shrink a copy for the web without touching your master file.
Metadata and privacy
The conversion happens entirely in your browser, so personal photos never pass through a server. Each PNG is written without the camera’s EXIF data, which removes the capture date, device model and GPS location.
Keep the original HEIC if you rely on that information, for example to sort photos by date in a library or to show where they were taken on a map.
Converting HEIC to PNG on a phone
The converter also works in Safari and Chrome on phones and tablets. Choose the photos, wait for the list to finish, and save the PNGs to the Files app or your downloads folder; the conversion runs on the phone itself, so nothing is sent over mobile data.
Phones have less memory than computers, so convert big sets in a few smaller groups, and use a laptop for panoramas and very high-resolution photos, which can exceed the canvas size a mobile browser allows.
Batches, file names and limits
Every PNG keeps the name of its HEIC file with a new extension, and duplicates become name (2).png so nothing is overwritten inside the ZIP. Up to 100 photos fit in one batch, and you can start another straight away.
The practical limit is memory. A 12-megapixel photo needs about 50 MB while it is being decoded, so large batches run one photo at a time, and very large panoramas are best converted on a laptop or desktop rather than a phone.