HEIC to JPG: Convert iPhone Photos Free in Your Browser

You plug the iPhone into a Windows laptop, copy the photos across, and not one of them opens. The email attachment box rejects them. The job portal says "unsupported file type". Every file ends in .heic, and that extension is the whole problem.

HEIC has been the default photo format on iPhone since iOS 11 landed in 2017. It's a genuinely better format than JPG. It's also one that most of the world still can't read.

Why nothing opens your HEIC files

HEIC stands for High Efficiency Image Container. It squeezes a photo using HEVC, the same compression method used for 4K video, and it gets roughly half the file size of a JPG at matching quality. On a phone holding twenty thousand photos, that adds up fast. Apple had a good reason to switch.

The reason nobody followed is licensing. HEVC is patented, and shipping a decoder means paying for it. Apple pays. Microsoft passes the cost on: to view HEIC on Windows you need the free HEIF Image Extensions from the Microsoft Store, plus the HEVC Video Extensions, which cost about a dollar. Chrome and Firefox never added HEIC display at all. WordPress blocks .heic uploads by default. Canva and Figma won't import one.

JPG carries none of that baggage. It's been free to use for decades, and every device built in the last thirty years opens it without being asked twice.

How to convert HEIC to JPG

1. Open the HEIC Converter.
2. Drop your .heic or .heif files in. Select the whole folder if you like, there's no batch limit and no daily cap.
3. Leave the output on JPG. PNG is there if you need it, but on a photograph it produces a file several times larger with nothing visible to show for it.
4. Quality starts at 85, which is right for sharing, email, and uploads. Push it to 92 or higher if the photo is heading for print or further editing.
5. Download files one at a time, or take the whole batch as a ZIP.

All of it happens inside your browser tab. That matters more here than with most conversions, because these files came off a phone, and phone photos carry GPS coordinates in their metadata. Most free HEIC converters want you to upload your camera roll to a server you know nothing about. This one decodes the files on your own machine and never sends them anywhere. The limit is 30 MB per photo, far above anything an iPhone produces.

If you want the long version, including the desktop and iPhone-side methods, our full guide on converting HEIC to JPG goes deeper than this page will.

What the conversion quietly drops

• Live Photos flatten. The little burst of motion is stored inside the HEIC. A JPG can only hold the still frame, so the movement is gone.
• Depth data disappears. Portrait mode shots keep a depth map that lets you re-adjust the background blur later. JPG has nowhere to put it, so that edit becomes permanent.
• Color depth halves. HEIC stores 16 bits per color channel, JPG stores 8. You will not notice this on most photos. On a smooth sunset gradient you occasionally see faint banding.
• File size roughly doubles. A 2 MB HEIC typically lands somewhere between 3 and 4 MB as a high quality JPG. That's the price of compatibility.

When to keep the HEIC instead

If you're archiving family photos to a drive and everything that will ever read them is a Mac or an iPhone, converting is pure loss. You'd be doubling your storage to gain compatibility you don't need. Keep the originals.

The sensible pattern for most people: keep HEIC on the phone and in your backup, and convert copies whenever something outside the Apple world needs to read them. Converting is a one way door, so never let the JPG overwrite the only HEIC you have.

Stop your iPhone making HEIC files at all

Settings, then Camera, then Formats, then pick "Most Compatible" instead of "High Efficiency". New photos save as JPEG from that moment on. Photos already in your camera roll stay as HEIC, so you'll still need the converter for those. Storage use will climb noticeably, which is the trade.