Why your iPhone photos are .heic files, and three ways to get JPGs

If you've ever copied photos off an iPhone and found a folder full of .heic files, you're not alone. Since iOS 11, iPhones save photos in HEIC (High Efficiency Image Container, part of the HEIF standard) by default. It keeps good quality at roughly half the size of a JPG, which is great for phone storage, but plenty of Windows apps, upload forms and print services still won't accept it.

Here are three practical ways to get JPGs out of them.

1. Change what the iPhone produces

• Settings > Camera > Formats > Most Compatible makes the camera shoot JPG from now on. Files get bigger, and it doesn't touch photos you've already taken.
• Settings > Photos > Transfer to Mac or PC > Automatic converts photos to a compatible format when you copy them over a cable.

2. Use what's built into your computer

• macOS: open the file in Preview and choose File > Export > JPEG, or select several files in Finder and use Quick Actions > Convert Image. From the terminal: sips -s format jpeg in.heic --out out.jpg.
• Windows 10/11: install HEIF Image Extensions from the Microsoft Store (some files also need HEVC Video Extensions), then open the photo in Paint and use Save as > JPEG.
• Linux: heif-convert in.heic out.jpg from the libheif-examples package, or ImageMagick built with libheif.

3. Convert in the browser

When you're on a machine you can't install things on, a browser-based converter is the quickest route. I built Convert HEIC to JPG for this: you drop in one or many .heic files and download JPGs. The decoding runs in your browser, so the photos aren't uploaded to a server. It's free, needs no signup, accepts files up to 50MB and can also output PNG or WebP.

Which one should you pick?

If you mostly share photos with Windows users, switching the camera to Most Compatible saves the most hassle. For a one-off batch, the built-in Mac tools or a browser converter are the fastest. For scripts and servers, libheif or ImageMagick is the way to go.