How to convert HEIC to JPG
A photo taken on an iPhone will not open on most Windows machines, in most browsers, or in most upload forms. This guide explains why that happens, walks through the fix on each system, and covers the one setting that stops it happening again.
The short answer: drop the file into the HEIC to JPG converter and you get a JPG back in a second or two. It runs in the browser, so your photos are not uploaded anywhere — which matters more than usual here, since phone photos carry location data.
The rest of this page is for the cases the tool cannot cover: batch conversion on the command line, the phone setting, and what you give up when you convert.
What HEIC actually is
HEIC stands for High Efficiency Image Container. Two things are worth separating, because people usually conflate them:
- HEIF is the container — a box format that can hold images, thumbnails, depth maps, short clips and burst sequences.
- HEVC (also called H.265) is the codec that compresses the image inside it.
Apple moved the iPhone camera to HEIC with iOS 11 in 2017, for one reason: at the same visible quality the file is roughly half the size of a JPEG. A 12-megapixel photo drops from several megabytes to about half that, which is the difference between a phone holding a few thousand photos and holding many thousands.
The cost is that HEIC is designed for storing photos on a device, not for sending them across the internet. That single design decision is why you are reading this page.
Why the file will not open
It is not corrupt, and nothing is wrong with the phone. The receiving software simply has no HEVC image decoder:
| Where you opened it | What happens | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Chrome, Edge, Firefox on Windows | Refuses to display it | No HEVC image decoder ships with the browser, and it does not use a system one |
| Windows Explorer and Photos | Blank tile, or nothing | The HEIF codec is not installed by default |
| Safari on macOS or iOS | Opens normally | The operating system has a built-in HEVC decoder, and Safari uses it |
| macOS Preview | Opens normally | Same operating system decoder |
| An upload form | Rejected, or accepted and then broken | The server's validation list usually contains JPEG and PNG only |
The reason a phone photo can look fine on the phone and be unusable two minutes later on a laptop is that the two devices have different decoders, not that the transfer damaged anything. Copying a file cannot damage it; failing to decode it is the whole problem.
The fix that takes ten seconds
If you have one file, or fifty, the converter on this site will do it without installing anything and without uploading the photo. Drag the files in, press convert, download. Full resolution is kept, and the output is an ordinary JPG that opens anywhere.
Worth knowing: the conversion happens on your own machine, so it works on a plane or with the network unplugged. That is not a marketing line — it is a property you can test by turning off Wi-Fi after the page has loaded.
The permanent fix: stop the camera saving HEIC
If this keeps happening, the better answer is to make the phone produce JPEGs in the first place.
- Open Settings
- Tap Camera
- Tap Formats
- Choose Most Compatible instead of High Efficiency
New photos are then saved as .JPG and everything will open them. Two honest caveats: those files are roughly twice the size, and the setting only applies to photos taken from that point on. Your existing library stays HEIC, which is why a converter is still worth having.
If you are already seeing .JPG on your phone, this setting is on, and that is why your photos have never given you trouble.
Converting by system
macOS, without installing anything
Preview opens HEIC natively, so it can also save it out as JPEG: open the file, choose File › Export…, set Format to JPEG and pick a quality. For several files at once, use the Photos app and File › Export › Export Photo…, changing the format to JPEG in the panel.
If you are comfortable in Terminal, one command does a whole folder:
sips -s format jpeg *.heic --out converted/
Windows
Windows can be taught to read HEIC by installing the HEIF Image Extensions from the Microsoft Store; depending on your build you may also need the HEVC Video Extensions, which is a paid item. That makes the Photos app open the file, after which Save a copy produces a JPG.
Be clear about what this does and does not fix. It fixes the Photos app. It does not fix the browser — Chrome still will not open a HEIC even with those extensions installed, because it decodes images itself rather than asking Windows. If the file needs to go on a website or into a browser-based tool, convert it.
iPhone and iPad
Two shortcuts are built in. Turning on Settings › Photos › Transfer to Mac or PC › Automatic makes a USB transfer send JPEG versions to a computer instead of the originals. Separately, sharing a photo through Mail will deliver a JPEG, because the attachment is converted for compatibility on the way out.
Note that AirDrop does not convert — a Mac receives the original HEIC. That is fine, because macOS reads HEIC anyway. It only becomes a problem when the file is then passed on to a Windows machine.
Android
Most Android cameras do not produce HEIC, so this is rarely an issue. Some Samsung models did offer it as a toggle, and HEIC files can arrive from an iPhone or an AirDrop-equivalent transfer. Google Photos will usually hand you a JPEG when you download an image, because it re-encodes on the way out.
Online converters
They work, and the good ones are fast. The thing to understand is what happens to the file: it is uploaded to somebody else's server, converted there, and sent back. For a photo of a product on a white background that is a fair trade. For a photo of your passport, your driving licence, or your child, it is worth thinking about, particularly since phone photos often carry GPS coordinates in their metadata.
What you lose when you convert
- The location and time stamp. A JPG written from decoded pixels has no EXIF block, so the capture time, camera model and GPS coordinates are gone. Usually that is what you want for anything public, but it does mean the location record is not in the copy.
- Live Photo motion. A Live Photo is two files: a HEIC and a short MOV clip. Converting the image gives you a still; the motion is not carried over.
- A little quality. The HEIC is decoded losslessly and then written as a JPEG, which is lossy. At normal viewing sizes the difference is invisible.
- Extra highlight detail. Recent iPhones can store additional brightness information that a standard JPEG has no way to record. The result can look very slightly flatter in a bright sky. Keep the original if that matters.
When you should not convert
Conversion is not automatically the right move. Keep the HEIC when:
- It is your archive copy. The HEIC is the original and holds more data. Convert copies for sharing, and keep the originals.
- The destination reads HEIC. Sending files to another Apple device, or into a recent Adobe or Affinity product, does not need a conversion step.
- Storage is the point. Converting a whole library to JPEG doubles the space it takes up, for no benefit if nothing is reading those files.
Common mistakes
- Taking a screenshot instead of converting. A screenshot is a picture of a scaled-down preview. It is the single most common way people lose the resolution of a photo without noticing.
- Renaming the file to
.jpg. The extension is a label, not a conversion. Renaming a HEIC to.jpgleaves the bytes untouched, and most software will still refuse it — the ones that do not will fail halfway through. - Converting the same file twice. Each JPEG pass costs quality. Always convert from the HEIC original rather than from a JPG you converted earlier.
- Assuming a form that accepted the file will display it. Some upload systems store whatever they are given and only fail later, when a human tries to open the file. An error at upload time is friendlier than a blank image in a listing next week.
- Bulk-converting an entire library in one go. Do it in batches, and keep the originals. There is no undo once the originals are gone.
Questions
Is converting HEIC to JPG free?
Here, yes, with no account, no watermark and no per-file limit. The cost of a free online converter is normally paid in the form of your files being uploaded to somebody's server; this one avoids that entirely by doing the work in your browser.
Will the JPG look exactly like the HEIC?
Very close, but not bit-for-bit. The image is decoded without loss and then written as a JPEG, which discards some detail by design. At 92% quality the difference is not visible at normal viewing sizes. Keep the original if you ever need the exact file back.
Why is my JPG bigger than the HEIC?
Because JPEG is a less efficient compressor than HEVC. The same picture takes more bytes to look the same. Expect roughly one and a half to two times the size; the quality slider is the lever if that is a problem.
Can I convert HEIC on a phone?
Yes. In Safari on iOS or macOS the browser can decode HEIC itself, so the converter works there with no download at all. On Android, Chrome cannot decode HEIC, so the browser fetches the decoder first — it is a one-time cost of about 1.3 MB, cached afterwards.
Does converting remove the GPS location?
Yes, along with the rest of the EXIF block. That is usually desirable before publishing a photo. If you need the location kept, the original HEIC is the file that has it.
What about HEIC files from a camera rather than a phone?
The container is the same, so the same conversion applies. Some recent Fujifilm, Sony and Canon bodies can write HEIF instead of JPEG, and those files behave identically: readable on the camera and by the maker's software, and not readable in a browser.