Convert HEIC to JPG

How to convert a HEIC photo to JPG

1. Choose one HEIC, HEIF, JPG, PNG or WebP photo in the workspace. The file stays in this browser tab. The limit is 25 MB and 40 megapixels.
2. Set JPG quality from 10 to 100. It starts at 82. The background colour fills transparency only if you also drop a transparent PNG or WebP on this page.
3. Select Convert to JPG. If this browser cannot read HEIC itself, a decoder loads in the page and the preview is drawn from the decoded pixels.
4. Read the width, height and file size beside the result, then download the JPG. Keep the original HEIC if you still have it.

What a HEIC file actually is

HEIC is the filename people see on a photo from a recent iPhone. The letters stand for High Efficiency Image Container. The container is HEIF, the High Efficiency Image File Format, and the picture inside is usually compressed with HEVC, the same family of compression used for a lot of video. HEIF is the box. HEIC is the common name for a still photo in that box when the photo uses HEVC. A file ending in .heif is the same kind of container. This page accepts both.

A single HEIC can hold more than one image. A burst, a thumbnail, or an extra frame such as a depth map can sit beside the picture you meant to send. This converter takes the primary image, the one the file marks as the main photo, and ignores the rest. It does not stack the frames, and it does not turn a burst into a zip of JPGs. If you need a different frame, export that frame from Photos first and convert that file.

The phone also stores a direction for the photo. Sometimes that direction is a rotation inside the HEIC container. Sometimes an older file only has an orientation note in its metadata. This page applies the container rotation while it decodes, and it applies the metadata orientation when the container itself did not rotate the pixels. The JPG you download is drawn upright. You should not have to rotate it again in the app that rejected the HEIC.

Why iPhones save HEIC

Apple switched the camera default to HEIC so a photo could keep a similar look in less space than a JPG of the same scene. On a 12-megapixel shot the saving is often large enough to matter on a phone with a full camera roll. The format also lets the camera keep extra information in the same file, such as a depth map or an edit made in Photos, without forcing every app in the world to understand that extra information.

The practical problem is the other half of that choice. A Windows PC, a government form, an older email client, a printer kiosk or a marketplace upload often accepts JPG and refuses HEIC. The photo is not corrupt. The other software simply has no decoder. Sending the HEIC anyway wastes a round trip. Making a JPG copy is the compatible move, and it does not require handing the camera roll to a website.

JPG, PNG, or keep the HEIC

These are different jobs, and picking the wrong one makes a file that is either rejected or pointlessly huge. JPG is the copy most forms and Windows apps will open. It is lossy, widely supported, and usually the smallest of the three exports from a photograph. PNG is lossless. A photographic HEIC turned into PNG keeps the decoded pixels without a second lossy save, and the file is often several times larger than the JPG. Choose PNG when an editor or a graphic workflow asked for PNG, not when you are trying to email the holiday. Keeping the HEIC is the right call when you still want the camera master, including any extra frames and the original metadata. This site does not claim to copy that extra data into the JPG.

Open HEIC to PNG when the next tool wants a lossless file, or HEIC to WebP when the destination is a website that can serve WebP. Convert an iPhone HEIC photo is the same local conversion aimed at the phone-to-PC job. If you already exported a PNG, the PNG to JPG tool is the encoder this page uses for the JPG step. JPG to PNG will not put camera detail back, and the file will usually grow.

Quality and file size

The quality field runs from 10 to 100 and starts at 82. That number is a ceiling on how much fine detail the JPG encoder keeps. 82 is a sensible start for a photograph you will upload or attach. Drop toward 60 or 70 only when the file must be smaller and you have looked at the preview at a size close to real use. A quality of 100 is still a JPG. It is not the original HEIC, and it is often a larger file than you need. The background colour on this page matters when a transparent PNG or WebP is converted to JPG, because JPG has no transparency and the empty pixels need a colour. A normal iPhone HEIC is opaque, so the background is unused for that photo.

There is no honest single ratio for how much smaller the JPG will be. It depends on the scene, the quality, and how large the HEIC already was. Read the file size next to the preview instead of trusting a slogan. If a form also caps the JPG at a number of kilobytes, download this result and run it through the image compressor. If the form asks for exact pixels, use the image resizer on the JPG. Do those steps from the original conversion, not by saving the same JPG over and over. Each extra JPG save throws a little more detail away.

Stop the iPhone saving HEIC

Conversion fixes a photo you already took. It does not change the camera. To make the iPhone save JPG from now on, open Settings, then Camera, then Formats, then Most Compatible. Apple labels the other choice High Efficiency, which is HEIC. Most Compatible applies to new photos and videos the camera records after you change it. Pictures already in the library stay HEIC, and screenshots and saved images from other apps may still arrive in other formats. If you use iCloud Photos, a Mac may already show a JPG while the phone keeps HEIC. That is a transfer setting, not this page. This page only converts the file you choose here.

Most Compatible is the right switch when the people you send photos to are often on Windows, or when a portal rejects the camera roll every time. Leave High Efficiency on when you care more about space on the phone and you only convert the occasional picture. Either way, keep one untouched original somewhere you control. A JPG from this page is a delivery copy.

The photo stays on this device

Nothing on this page uploads the HEIC to Image Cosmos. The browser reads the file you chose, decodes it in the tab, and offers a JPG download. There is no account, no queue, and no copy kept on a server after you leave. The preview and the download link live in memory and disappear when you close or reload the page. That is the same privacy rule as the rest of Image Cosmos, including when a decoder has to load because Chrome, Edge or Firefox could not read the HEIC on their own. The decoder runs here. It does not send the bytes anywhere.

A local JPG is not a promise about what you do next. If you attach that JPG to email, or drop it on another site, that site has its own rules. If you want a check that common metadata blocks are absent from the JPG, use remove EXIF metadata on the download. The privacy page explains analytics and advertising separately from the image itself. Advertising on this page does not receive the photo.