How to Convert HEIC to JPG (iPhone Photos) — Free & Private

Why your iPhone photos won’t open on Windows, and the fastest ways to fix it.

What HEIC actually is, and why it annoys everyone

HEIC (High Efficiency Image Container) is the format iPhones have used by default since iOS 11. It stores photos using the HEVC codec, which produces roughly half the file size of an equivalent JPEG — genuinely useful on a phone, genuinely annoying everywhere else. Windows only handles it with an extra codec pack, older Android versions refuse it, and a large share of websites, portals and desktop programs simply do not know what the file is.

If a form tells you “only JPG or PNG”, and your photo album is full of IMG_4821.HEIC, you need a conversion.

The quickest fix on an iPhone

There are two ways to avoid the problem in the future, and both live on the phone:

• Settings → Camera → Formats → Most Compatible. New photos are then saved as JPEG. The downside is larger files on the device, so many people switch this on only when they know they will need to upload something.
• Let iOS convert automatically. When you share a HEIC through Mail, Messages or many apps, iOS silently converts it to JPEG. The trouble starts when you transfer files by cable or export from iCloud — those come out as HEIC.

Neither option helps with photos you already have. For those you need a converter.

Converting without losing more than necessary

HEIC is already a lossy format, and converting it re-encodes the image, so there is potential for a second generation of quality loss. Two rules keep it invisible:

• Convert to JPEG at quality 90–95. At this level the re-encode is visually indistinguishable from the original.
• Do not convert to PNG just because it sounds “better”. PNG is lossless, so a HEIC photo converted to PNG becomes 5–10 times larger for no visible gain. PNG makes sense for screenshots and graphics, not for camera photos.

Also keep the original HEIC. If you later need the maximum quality, the original is the closest thing to a negative you have.

What about Live Photos and bursts?

A HEIC file from a Live Photo contains a still image plus a short video. Converters keep the still image; the motion part is dropped. Burst photos are stored as separate files, so convert them one by one — or pick the best frame first and delete the rest, which is usually a good idea anyway.

Other formats the converter handles

The same tool is a general image converter, so the same workflow works for:

• WebP → JPG — for the occasional portal that rejects modern formats
• AVIF → JPG — same story, AVIF is even newer
• PNG → JPG — when a screenshot with a white background needs to shrink; choose white as the background colour for transparent areas
• SVG → PNG — rendering a vector graphic at a fixed pixel size for a thumbnail
• BMP / GIF → JPG or PNG — old files from old software

Convert locally, keep the photo private

Family photos and passport scans are exactly the kind of file you should not upload to a random converter site. The Image Converter here decodes HEIC with a decoder bundled into the page and does the conversion with the browser's own canvas — the photo never leaves your device, and you can verify that by disconnecting from the internet after the page has loaded.