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HEIC photos: why they won't open, and how to get a JPG

iPhones and iPads save photos as HEIC by default. The format keeps photos small, but plenty of websites, upload forms and Windows PCs still can't open it. You can stop the phone from creating HEIC files, or convert the ones you already have to JPG.

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What HEIC is

HEIC is a photo stored in the HEIF container and compressed with HEVC (H.265), the same method many phones use for video. Apple made it the default camera format in iOS 11 in 2017. For the same visible quality it needs roughly half the space of a JPEG, which is why your phone uses it.

The catch is support. HEVC is covered by patents, so not every operating system and website ships a decoder. On Windows 10 and 11, HEIC photos open only when optional extensions from the Microsoft Store are installed (HEIF Image Extensions plus an HEVC codec), and many PCs don't have them. Plenty of upload forms accept only JPG and PNG and reject a HEIC without saying why.

Stop it at the source

  • New photos as JPG: on the iPhone, go to Settings → Camera → Formats and choose Most Compatible. From then on the camera saves JPEG. Your photos will take more storage.
  • Copying to a computer: Settings → Photos → Transfer to Mac or PC → Automatic makes the phone convert photos to a compatible format when you copy them over a cable.

Neither setting changes the HEIC photos already on the phone, so for those you need to convert.

Converting with FormatOS

  1. Open HEIC to JPG and drop the photo. It is decoded in your browser by libheif; the photo is not uploaded.
  2. Leave quality at 90 for photos you want to keep. Lower it if you are converting for a form with a size limit.
  3. Press Convert to JPG and download the result.

We converted a 12-megapixel (4032 × 3024) HEIC of 249 KB, cropped from the macOS “Sonoma” desktop picture. At quality 90 the JPG was 526 KB, about twice the size of the HEIC. At quality 75 it was 168 KB, smaller than the original. Both kept the full 4032 × 3024 pixels, and each took about a second and a half in the browser.

What changes in the JPG

  • Size: at high quality the JPG is larger than the HEIC, because JPEG is the less efficient format. That is the price of compatibility.
  • Metadata: the JPG carries no EXIF data. In our test the camera model, date taken and any GPS location were not carried over. That is a privacy gain if you are posting or uploading the photo, and a loss if you are archiving it.
  • HDR and depth: JPEG holds 8 bits per colour channel, so HDR brightness and depth or portrait-lighting data are not kept. A Live Photo's motion is a separate video and is not converted; you get the still frame.
  • Multi-image files: if a HEIC holds several images, the tool converts the first.

If the JPG is still too big for a form

Run it through Compress Image with a target size. Our size-limit guide shows what happens to a 12-megapixel photo at 200 KB, 100 KB, 50 KB and 20 KB.

Practical note: Converting a HEIC to JPG makes the file larger at high quality and drops the photo's camera metadata. Keep the HEIC if you need the original date and location.

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