What is HEIC, and should I convert my photos?
HEIC is the photo format your iPhone has shot by default since iOS 11. It is roughly half the size of a JPEG at similar quality, and it is genuinely the better format — the only thing wrong with it is that the rest of the world has not caught up. So: keep HEIC on your phone, and convert copies when you need to hand one to something that cannot read it. Do not bulk-convert your library.
What a HEIC file actually is
HEIC is a still image compressed with HEVC — the same video codec as H.265 — stored in a container called HEIF. Apple adopted it in iOS 11 (2017), which is why the format arrived in millions of camera rolls overnight without anyone being asked.
Using a video codec on a still photo sounds odd and is the whole trick. HEVC's intra-frame compression — the part that codes a single frame with no reference to any other — is simply much better than JPEG's, which was designed in 1992. Same picture, about half the bytes.
The container earns its keep too. A .heic can hold things a .jpg structurally cannot:
- Depth maps — the data behind Portrait mode, and why you can restage the background blur afterwards.
- Both halves of a Live Photo, and burst sequences, as multiple images in one file.
- 10-bit colour, so skies and sunsets do not band the way 8-bit JPEGs do.
- Transparency, and edits stored non-destructively alongside the original.
A JPEG has one 8-bit image in it, and that is all it will ever have.
HEIC vs HEIF vs HEVC, since everyone mixes them up. HEIF is the container standard. HEVC (H.265) is the codec doing the compressing. HEIC is what you get when you put HEVC-compressed stills in a HEIF container — it is the specific flavour Apple writes, and the reason your files end in .heic rather than .heif.
So what is the problem?
Purely compatibility. Not quality, not size, not licensing on your end — just the long tail of software that has never heard of it.
Where HEIC still trips:
- Older Windows. Windows 11 generally handles HEIC; Windows 10 typically needs codec extensions from the Microsoft Store, and the HEVC one has historically been a paid add-on. This is how most people meet the problem: they email photos to a colleague and get "I can't open these" back.
- Web upload forms. Job applications, insurance claims, government portals. Many accept "JPG, PNG or GIF" and reject everything else on sight.
- Print kiosks and photo labs, especially self-service machines.
- Older photo and design software, older Office versions, older Android phones.
- Anything embedded — digital picture frames, car displays, older TVs.
The pattern: your own Apple devices are perfectly happy, and the trouble starts the moment a file crosses into somebody else's world.
The right mental model
HEIC is the negative. JPEG is the print you hand out.
You keep the negative because it holds more information and can produce any print you need later. You do not convert your negatives into prints and throw the negatives away — you make a print when somebody asks for one. That is the whole policy in two lines: leave the library alone, and export a JPEG copy at the moment of sharing. Conveniently, it is what your phone already tries to do for you.
Your iPhone already converts, for free, in several places
Before installing anything, know what you already have. These are free, built in, and often enough on their own.
Stop shooting HEIC entirely: Settings > Camera > Formats > Most Compatible. The camera writes JPEG from then on. Photos take about twice the storage, you lose 10-bit colour and some Portrait-mode flexibility, and you never think about this again. For a lot of people that is a perfectly rational trade, and it is free.
Automatic conversion when transferring to a computer: Settings > Photos > scroll to Transfer to Mac or PC and choose Automatic. Photos copied over a cable are converted to JPEG on the way out; Keep Originals sends the HEIC untouched.
Sharing usually converts already. Mail, Messages and most apps that receive a photo through the Share Sheet will take a JPEG-compatible version. The cases that hand over the raw .heic are the ones that copy the file verbatim — AirDrop to a non-Apple machine, attaching from Files, uploading to cloud storage.
If those cover you, you are done and you can close this page. Where they run out is batch work, precise control over quality and dimensions, converting HEICs that are already sitting in Files rather than in Photos, and stripping metadata while you are at it.
Do not bulk-convert your photo library to JPEG. Three reasons, all of them bad. You will roughly double the storage it occupies. You will permanently lose depth maps, Live Photo motion, 10-bit colour and non-destructive edits, because JPEG cannot hold any of them. And it is a lossy-to-lossy conversion, so every photo comes out slightly worse than the one you had. You would be paying storage to lose data. Convert copies, on demand, when something needs one.
When converting is the right call
Plenty of the time, and there is nothing wrong with it:
- A form or portal that will not take HEIC.
- Sending photos to someone on Windows, Android, or an unknown setup — a JPEG is the safe default and always will be.
- Printing, especially at a kiosk.
- Uploading to a website or CMS.
- A batch from a shoot that has to go somewhere that only speaks JPEG.
The quality loss from one careful HEIC-to-JPEG conversion at high quality is not something you will see. The point is not to fear the conversion; it is to convert a copy, and keep the HEIC.
Where Convexy fits. It converts HEIC to JPG, PNG, TIFF, WebP, AVIF and others on your device, in batches, with control over quality and size — and it strips EXIF and GPS by default while doing it, which the built-in routes do not. If Shortcuts or the Most Compatible setting already solves your problem, use those instead; they are free.
Common questions
Should I convert my whole photo library from HEIC to JPG?
No. You would roughly double the storage used, permanently discard depth maps, Live Photo motion and 10-bit colour that JPEG cannot store, and take a small quality hit on every image, since HEIC to JPG is a lossy-to-lossy conversion. Keep the library in HEIC and convert individual copies when you need to share them.
How do I stop my iPhone taking HEIC photos?
Go to Settings > Camera > Formats and choose Most Compatible. The camera then writes JPEG directly. It is free and built in. The cost is roughly double the file size, plus the loss of 10-bit colour and some Portrait-mode flexibility.
Is HEIC better quality than JPG?
At the same file size, yes, clearly — it is about twice as efficient, and it supports 10-bit colour, so gradients like skies do not band the way JPEG's 8-bit does. At the same visual quality it is about half the size. HEIC's only real disadvantage is that fewer things can open it.
Can Windows open HEIC files?
Windows 11 generally can. Windows 10 usually needs the HEIF and HEVC codec extensions from the Microsoft Store, and the HEVC one has historically been a paid add-on — which is why sending HEICs to a Windows user so often produces "I can't open these". If you do not know what the recipient is running, send JPEG.
Does converting HEIC to JPG lose quality?
Yes, a little. Both are lossy formats, so the JPEG encoder re-compresses an image that HEVC has already compressed — a second generation of loss. At a high quality setting it is not something you will notice by eye. It is still a good reason to convert a copy rather than replace the original.
Will converting to JPG remove the GPS location from my photos?
Not automatically. JPEG stores EXIF metadata perfectly well, so a conversion generally carries the GPS coordinates, timestamp and device model straight across unless the tool deliberately strips them. Convexy strips metadata by default. iOS can also remove location for free at share time — see the guide on removing GPS from photos.