How to Open and Convert HEIC Photos (iPhone, Windows, Mac)
If a photo from your iPhone won’t open on a Windows PC, gets rejected by a website, or shows up as a blank box in an email, the culprit is almost always HEIC. It is a perfectly good format that a lot of software still can’t read. Here is what it is, and the quickest ways to turn it into a JPG.
By the CrispPic team3 min read
What HEIC is, and why your iPhone uses it
HEIC is Apple’s file extension for the HEIF image format combined with HEVC compression. iPhones have used it by default since iOS 11 because it stores a photo in roughly half the space of a JPEG at comparable quality — a real saving when you take thousands of pictures.
Why it causes problems
HEIC support outside Apple’s ecosystem is patchy. Windows often needs an extension before it will open the files. Many websites, job portals and government forms accept only JPG or PNG. Some older apps and print kiosks simply don’t recognise it. The photo is fine; the receiving software isn’t ready for it.
Option 1: shoot JPG from now on
On the iPhone, go to Settings → Camera → Formats and choose Most Compatible. New photos are then saved as JPG. The trade-off is that files take more storage, and it doesn’t help with photos you have already taken.
Option 2: let iOS convert when you transfer
Under Settings → Photos, scroll to Transfer to Mac or PC and choose Automatic. When you connect the phone to a computer, iOS converts photos to a compatible format as it copies them, so you never see the HEIC file.
Option 3: on a Mac
Open the photo in Preview, choose File → Export, and set the format to JPEG. To convert several at once, select them all in the Preview sidebar before exporting.
Option 4: on Windows
Windows can open HEIC files once you install Microsoft’s HEIF Image Extensions from the Microsoft Store (some setups also need the HEVC video extension). That lets you view the photos, but turning them into JPGs is still slower than the browser route below.
Option 5: convert in your browser, without installing anything
- Open the HEIC to JPG converter.
- Drop in your photo. HEIC is recognised and decoded automatically.
- Leave the output format on JPG. If the destination has a size or dimension limit, switch that requirement on too — it is applied in the same pass.
- Download the JPG.
Safari can decode HEIC itself; other browsers load a small decoder only at the moment you drop a HEIC file in. Either way the conversion happens on your own device — the photo is never uploaded.
Converting re-encodes the picture, so the JPG is usually larger than the HEIC and doesn’t carry over camera metadata. If you want the best archive, keep the original HEIC and use the JPG only for sharing.
Will I lose quality?
Converting to JPG involves one lossy step, but at a high quality setting the difference is hard to see. The bigger risk is converting the same photo repeatedly. Convert once, from the original, and keep that original.
Frequently asked questions
Is HEIC the same as HEIF?
Nearly. HEIF is the underlying image file standard; HEIC is the extension Apple uses for HEIF images compressed with HEVC. In everyday use the two terms are interchangeable.
Can I convert many HEIC photos at once?
CrispPic converts one image at a time. For a large batch, the Mac Preview export or the automatic transfer setting on your iPhone is faster.
Will the JPG be smaller than the HEIC?
Usually not — HEIC is more efficient, so an equivalent-quality JPG is typically larger. If you need it small, set a maximum file size while converting.
Why does my photo upload fail even after I renamed it to .jpg?
Renaming a file doesn’t change its contents. A HEIC file called photo.jpg is still HEIC inside, and many systems detect that. It has to be genuinely converted.
Try it with the right settings already applied
These pages open the CrispPic tool pre-configured for this exact case. Your image is processed in your own browser — it is never uploaded anywhere.
Free, no account, no watermark.
Keep reading
- JPG vs PNG vs WebP: Which Image Format Should You Use?A plain-English comparison of JPG, PNG and WebP — file size, quality, transparency and compatibility — and a simple rule for choosing the right one.
- Photo Too Large to Upload? How to Fit Any File Size LimitGet a photo under the exact KB or MB limit an upload form demands: which limits are common, how to hit them, and what to do when compression alone isn’t enough.
- How to Reduce Image Size Without Losing QualityWhy photos are so big, and the four steps that shrink them by 70–90% with no visible difference: resize, pick the right format, set a sensible quality, trim the rest.