How to convert HEIC photos to JPG

Open your iPhone pictures anywhere — without uploading personal photos to a conversion site.

Since iOS 11, iPhones have saved photos as HEIC. It is a genuinely better format — roughly half the file size of JPEG at similar quality — but support outside Apple's world is still patchy. Windows needs an add-on, plenty of desktop software refuses to open them, and upload forms for job applications, insurance claims and government portals frequently reject the extension outright.

Step-by-step

1. Open the converter. Go to Image Tools and choose "HEIC → JPG".
2. Add your photos. Drag in one or a whole batch straight from the Photos export folder.
3. Choose the format. JPG for maximum compatibility and small files; PNG if you need lossless quality.
4. Set the quality. 90% is a sensible default for JPG — visually indistinguishable from the original in normal viewing.
5. Convert and download. The decoder (about 1.3 MB) downloads on first use and is cached afterwards.

Why not just email them to yourself?

Sending photos through Mail or Messages often converts them to JPEG automatically, which is why the trick works — but it also recompresses them at a quality you don't control, and routes your pictures through servers unnecessarily. Converting locally keeps the resolution you chose and keeps the photos on your machine.

Things worth knowing

• Stopping the problem at source. On iPhone: Settings → Camera → Formats → Most Compatible makes the camera save JPEG from then on. Existing photos stay HEIC.
• Live Photos. These contain a still frame and a short video. Conversion keeps the still; the movement is discarded.
• File size goes up. A 2 MB HEIC often becomes a 4 MB JPEG at high quality — that is the cost of the older format's efficiency, not a fault. Use the exact-size compressor afterwards if you need to hit an upload limit.
• Location data travels with the photo. HEIC files from a phone usually carry GPS coordinates, and conversion can preserve them. If you are posting the picture publicly, run it through Sanitize before sharing first.

Frequently asked questions

Are my photos uploaded?

No. Decoding and re-encoding both happen in your browser — which is the point, since camera-roll photos are personal by definition.

Can it handle a whole album at once?

Yes. Drop in as many as you like; they convert one after another and download individually.

One of my files won't convert.

HEIF is a family of formats, and some variants — particularly depth-map or burst captures — use encodings the decoder doesn't read. You'll get a clear message naming the file rather than a silent failure or a quiet upload to a server.