HEIC to JPG: open and convert iPhone photos on any device

Guides · Updated 12 October 2026 · By Tiago Santos

iPhones save photos as HEIC (High Efficiency Image Container). It keeps the same quality as JPG in about half the space, which is great until you send a photo to a Windows PC, a website form or an older app that won’t open it.

Make the iPhone save JPG instead

Go to Settings, Camera, Formats, and choose Most Compatible. New photos are saved as JPG. They take more space, and existing photos stay HEIC.

To keep HEIC on the phone but get JPG on a computer, go to Settings, Photos, and under Transfer to Mac or PC choose Automatic. Photos copied over a cable are converted as they’re transferred.

Convert on a Mac

Open the photo in Preview, choose File, Export, and pick JPEG as the format. To convert many at once, select them all in the Finder, open them in Preview, select all in the sidebar and export.

Open and convert on Windows

Windows 10 and 11 can open HEIC after you install Microsoft’s HEIF Image Extensions from the Microsoft Store. Some photos also need the HEVC Video Extensions, which may cost a small fee. After that, open the photo in Photos or Paint and save it as JPG.

Convert in your browser, on any device, without installing anything

HEIC to JPG turns HEIC photos into JPG (or PNG or WebP, with Convert image), one or a hundred at a time, and works on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and ChromeOS. The photos are converted on your device, not uploaded, so it’s fine for personal and family pictures. Converting also drops the hidden location data, which is usually what you want when sharing.

If the JPGs are too big to email or upload, Compress image shrinks them, and Images to PDF puts several into one document.

Does converting lose quality?

A little, as with any JPG. At high quality (around 90%) the difference is very hard to see, and the file is still smaller than a PNG. Keep the original HEIC if you might want to edit the photo later.