How to convert iPhone HEIC photos to JPG

Step by step

1. Get the HEIC files onto the computer. AirDrop, iCloud Photos, a cable or a direct transfer from the Photos app all work. If you only have the photos on the phone, the tool runs in Safari on iOS too.
2. Open HEIC to JPG. Go to the HEIC to JPG tool. The decoder loads into your browser tab the first time, so there is a short pause before the drop zone is ready.
3. Drop the photos in. Drag one or many .heic files onto the drop zone. Each is listed with its pixel dimensions and original size.
4. Set Quality. The Quality slider defaults to 90, which is visually identical to the original for prints and screens. Lower it to 75 if you need smaller files for a website or email.
5. Click Convert to JPG. Conversion runs at about one 12-megapixel photo per second on a recent laptop. Live Photos become a single still frame.
6. Download. Click Download on each photo, or Download all as ZIP for a batch. The JPGs keep the full resolution of the originals.

Why does my iPhone save photos as HEIC?

Since iOS 11 in 2017 the iPhone camera has defaulted to HEIC, Apple's name for the HEIF container with HEVC-compressed images. The reason is storage: a HEIC photo is about half the size of a JPG at similar quality, so a 128 GB phone holds twice as many pictures. Within the Apple ecosystem you never notice, because Photos, Mail and Messages convert on the fly when a recipient cannot handle HEIC.

The trouble starts when a file leaves that ecosystem as a file: a cable transfer to a Windows PC, an upload to a council planning portal or an insurer's claims form, or an attachment to a work email system that strips anything it does not recognise.

Which programs and sites cannot open HEIC?

Windows 10 and 11 can view HEIC only after installing the HEVC Video Extensions from the Microsoft Store, which costs 79p. Without it, Explorer shows a blank thumbnail and Photos refuses to open the file. Older versions of Office, most web upload forms, many printers' kiosk software and almost every Android phone before 2019 are also unable to read it. JPG, by contrast, has opened everywhere since the mid 1990s.

How much bigger will the JPG be?

Expect roughly double at quality 90, in line with HEIC being about half the size of JPG at similar quality. The exact figure depends on the scene: a detailed landscape grows more than a plain wall. The table shows what we measured on three photos from an iPhone 15.

How do I stop the iPhone making HEIC files?

Open Settings, tap Camera, then Formats, and choose Most Compatible instead of High Efficiency. New photos are saved as JPG and new videos as H.264 MP4, which also fixes the related problem of iPhone videos that Windows cannot play. Existing photos are not converted retroactively, so run those through HEIC to JPG. The cost is storage: expect photos to take about twice the space from then on.

A gentler option is Settings, Photos, then under Transfer to Mac or PC choose Automatic. The phone then converts to JPG only when copying over a cable, and keeps HEIC on the device.

What happens to Live Photos and metadata?

A Live Photo is a HEIC still plus a short .mov. Kilnfile converts the still and ignores the video clip, so you get a normal JPG of the key frame. Metadata is not copied to the JPG: the date, camera model and GPS location that were in the HEIC are left behind. That is usually what people want when uploading to a public site, but if you need the capture date preserved, note it before converting.

Frequently asked questions