How to Convert HEIC to JPG (Windows, Mac & iPhone)

The fastest way to convert HEIC to JPG is to drop the file into a browser-based converter — no software, no upload, and it works the same on every operating system. Windows, Mac and iPhone also each have a built-in method that needs nothing installed.

This guide covers every free option, on every device, and tells you which one fits your situation.

What you’ll learn

The one method that works everywhere, in about ten seconds
The built-in converter already on your Windows PC, Mac and iPhone
Whether converting actually costs you image quality
What to do when the file won’t convert at all

The fastest way: convert in your browser

Modern browsers can run a full HEIC decoder as WebAssembly. That means a web page can convert your photo without sending it anywhere.

This matters for two reasons. It works identically on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iPhone. And because the file never leaves your device, it is the right choice for anything private.

Browser-based conversion works on any operating system because the decoder ships with the web page, not with your operating system.

Drop your files in, press convert, and download them individually or as one zip. There is no account, no watermark and no file limit.

If you would rather use what is already on your computer, keep reading.

Why are my photos HEIC in the first place?

What HEIC actually is

HEIC stands for High Efficiency Image Container. It is a photo stored inside the HEIF container format and compressed with HEVC, also known as H.265.

The short version: it is a photo that takes roughly half the space of the equivalent JPEG. Our guide to what a HEIC file is covers the format in depth.

Why Apple switched in 2017

Apple made HEIC the default in iOS 11. Phone cameras had outgrown JPEG, a format designed in 1992, and storage on a phone is expensive.

Halving the size of every photo in a 60,000-photo library is a serious win. For Apple’s own ecosystem it was an easy decision.

Why Windows and Android struggle with it

HEVC is patent-encumbered. Companies that want to decode it have to license it, and many simply did not.

That is the entire reason your PC refuses to open a photo your phone created without complaint. The file is fine; the decoder is missing.

How to convert HEIC to JPG on Windows

Method 1Use your browser

Open the HEIC to JPG converter, drag your files in, and press convert. Nothing is installed and nothing is uploaded.

This is the only Windows method that needs no codec, works on a locked-down work PC, and handles a hundred files as easily as one.

Use this when: you want it done now, or the photos are private and you would rather they stayed on your machine.

Method 2The Photos app (built into Windows)

Step by step

Right-click the HEIC file and choose Open with → Photos.
Click the … menu in the top-right corner.
Choose Save as.
In the “Save as type” dropdown, pick JPG picture.
Choose a location and click Save.

When this doesn’t work

If Photos shows an error instead of your picture, the HEVC codec is missing. Windows cannot save a file it cannot decode in the first place.

You have two options: install the extensions in Method 4, or use Method 1 and skip the problem entirely.

Use this when: you have one or two photos and Windows can already display them.

Method 3Microsoft Paint

Open the HEIC in Paint, then choose File → Save as → JPEG picture. Paint depends on the same system codec as Photos, so this only helps when Windows can already display the image.

Paint also re-saves at a fixed quality you cannot control, which makes it a poor choice for photos you care about.

Use this when: Photos is misbehaving and you only need a single file converted.

Method 4Install HEIF Image Extensions

Search the Microsoft Store for HEIF Image Extensions and install it. It is free, and after a restart of the Photos app, thumbnails and previews start working.

Is the HEVC extension still paid?

Sometimes. Microsoft publishes two packages: the free HEIF Image Extensions, and HEVC Video Extensions, which has historically cost around one dollar.

Many machines get HEVC support pre-installed by the manufacturer, in which case you need nothing else. Whether you are prompted to pay depends on your specific PC. (Accurate as of August 2026 — Microsoft has changed this arrangement more than once.)

📖 Further reading: how to open HEIC files on Windows covers the codec situation, third-party viewers, and the registry-level details.

Use this when: you want File Explorer and every Windows app to handle HEIC natively from now on.

How to convert HEIC to JPG on Mac

macOS decodes HEIC natively, so every method here works out of the box.

Method 1Preview → Export

Step by step

Open the HEIC file in Preview (double-clicking usually does this).
Choose File → Export…
Set Format to JPEG.
Drag the Quality slider — around 90% is the sweet spot.
Click Save.

Batch converting in Preview

Most guides miss this one. Select every photo in Finder first, then open them together in Preview.

They appear in a single window’s sidebar. Select all of them there, and File → Export converts the entire set in one pass, into one folder.

Use this when: you want control over the output quality, or you are converting a batch.

Method 2Drag it out of the Photos app

Open Photos, then drag the image straight onto your desktop or into a folder. macOS converts it to JPEG during the drag.

It is the fastest method on a Mac and almost nobody knows about it. The downside is no control over the output quality.

Use this when: you need one photo, immediately, and do not care about quality settings.

Method 3Finder Quick Actions

Right-click a HEIC in Finder, then choose Quick Actions → Convert Image. Pick JPEG and a size, and Finder writes the converted copy alongside the original.

This works on multiple files at once too, which makes it a genuine alternative to Preview for bulk jobs.

Use this when: you want to convert without opening any application at all.

How to convert HEIC to JPG on iPhone

Method 1Change the camera format

This is the one that fixes the cause instead of the symptom.

Settings → Camera → Formats → Most Compatible

Open Settings.
Tap Camera, then Formats.
Under “Camera Capture”, choose Most Compatible.

Every photo you take from that moment is a JPEG. Videos switch to H.264 at the same time.

⚠️ This does not convert your existing photos

Worth stating plainly, because it catches people out. The setting only affects new captures.

The thousands of HEIC photos already in your library stay exactly as they are. For those, use one of the methods below.

Use this when: you are tired of the problem and want it to stop happening.

Method 2The share sheet

Open the photo, tap the share icon, and choose Mail or Save to Files. iOS converts to JPEG on the way out in most of these paths.

Note that the conversion is not guaranteed everywhere. AirDrop between two Apple devices deliberately keeps the original HEIC.

Use this when: you are sending one photo to somebody right now.

Method 3Copy into the Files app

Select the photos in the Photos app, tap share, then Save to Files. Choose a folder and save.

The files that land there are JPEGs, which you can then move to a cloud folder or email as a group.

Use this when: you need to convert a batch on the phone itself.

Method 4Auto-convert when transferring to a PC

Go to Settings → Photos, scroll to Transfer to Mac or PC, and select Automatic rather than “Keep Originals”.

Your phone then converts photos to JPEG as it transfers them. This single setting removes the problem from your workflow permanently.

Use this when: you regularly move photos from your iPhone to a Windows computer.

How to convert HEIC to JPG on Android

Android has supported HEIF at the operating-system level since Android 10, but whether your gallery app can convert is up to the manufacturer.

Samsung, Google and Xiaomi all ship different photo apps with different capabilities. Two phones on the same Android version behave differently.

Because of that fragmentation, the browser converter is the most reliable route on Android. It behaves identically on every handset, and it works in Chrome, Firefox and Samsung Internet.

The Google Photos route

If the HEICs reached your Android phone through Google Photos, there is a second option. Open the photo, tap the three-dot menu, and choose Download.

Google Photos serves a JPEG copy to devices that ask for one, so the file that lands in your gallery is usually already converted. It is convenient, but you are trusting Google’s re-encode rather than choosing the quality yourself.

Worth knowing: this route uploads your photo to Google’s servers if it was not already there. For anything sensitive, the on-device converter is the better answer.

What about .heif, .heics and other extensions?

Apple’s naming is genuinely confusing, and picking the wrong tool because of a file extension wastes time.

.heic and .heif are the same thing in practice

.heic is Apple’s extension for a HEIF image compressed with HEVC. .heif is the more generic extension for the same container.

Every method in this guide works on both. If a converter accepts one and rejects the other, that is a limitation of the tool, not a difference in the file.

Canon and Sony are the ones to watch here: both name their HEIF files .hif, which most file pickers do not list at all. Our HEIF converter accepts the whole family, that extension included.

.heics and .avci are rarer cousins

.heics holds an image sequence — think of a burst or a short animation stored as one file. .avci is the same container compressed with AVC (H.264) instead of HEVC.

Both are uncommon on consumer phones. If you run into one, a browser converter that reads the container directly is the most likely to handle it — ours reads .heics and .heifs and converts the primary image out of them.

AVCI is the exception. It uses H.264 inside the same container, and decoders built for HEVC cannot read it.

One file, several photos

Remember that a single HEIC can hold more than one image. Converting it may produce several JPGs, and that is correct behaviour rather than a bug.

Open the file in the HEIC viewer first if you want to see what is actually inside before converting.

Which method should you use?

Four platforms and a dozen methods is a lot. This is the short version:

The pattern worth noticing: the browser method is the only one that is the right answer on every platform. Everything else depends on which computer you happen to be sitting at.

Does converting HEIC to JPG lose quality?

Short answer: technically yes, visibly no, provided you do not set the quality slider low.

What actually happens during conversion

Converting is not a rename. The HEIC is decoded into raw pixels, then those pixels are re-encoded as a JPEG.

Both formats are lossy, so the image passes through compression twice. This is called generation loss.

Converting HEIC to JPG re-encodes the image once. At quality 90 or above the difference is invisible in normal viewing, but the JPG file is usually larger than the HEIC it came from.

What changes, in practice

File size

Expect the JPG to be bigger, often by 30–50%. This surprises people who assume converting compresses a file.

HEVC is simply a more efficient compressor than JPEG. You are trading storage for compatibility.

Visible quality

At quality 90 and above, you will not see the difference on a screen. Below about 70, you start to see blocking in skies and smooth gradients.

Converting once is fine. Converting the same photo back and forth repeatedly is what degrades it.

Metadata

This one matters more than people expect. Some converters copy the full EXIF record across, including GPS coordinates and your device’s serial number. Others discard everything.

Neither behaviour is wrong, but you should know which one you are getting. The HEIC EXIF viewer shows exactly what a photo carries, and can export a copy with the record stripped.

Transparency

A HEIC can contain an alpha channel. JPEG cannot.

If your image has transparent areas, they will be filled — usually with white, sometimes with black. When transparency matters, convert to PNG instead.

Converting a whole folder at once

Batch conversion is where the methods separate sharply.

Route	Batch support	Output
Browser converter	Unlimited, downloads as one zip	You pick JPG, PNG or WebP
Mac Preview	Select all, export once	JPEG with quality control
Finder Quick Actions	Multi-select in Finder	JPEG, fixed quality
Windows Photos	One file at a time	JPEG
iPhone Files app	Multi-select then save	JPEG

Windows is the weak spot: the built-in Photos app has no batch export at all. On a PC with a folder full of HEICs, the browser route is not just convenient, it is the only practical option that does not involve installing something.

Troubleshooting

The file won’t open at all

Your system is missing the HEVC decoder. Either install the codec (Windows Method 4), or use a browser tool that brings its own.

The converted photo is rotated the wrong way

HEIC stores rotation in two different places: an EXIF orientation tag and a container-level transform. Some converters apply both, which rotates the photo twice.

If a converted photo comes out sideways, try a different tool rather than rotating it manually — the original is almost certainly fine.

The JPG came out much bigger than the HEIC

This is expected, not a fault. HEVC compresses more efficiently than JPEG, so the same picture needs more bytes as a JPG.

A 2 MB HEIC becoming a 3 MB JPG is normal. If the jump is far larger than that, your converter is writing at maximum quality — drop it to around 90 and the file shrinks sharply with no visible change.

Nothing happens when I press convert

On a browser converter, this usually means the file is not actually a HEIC. Files renamed by hand, or downloaded from a service that already converted them, are a common cause.

Check the real format by opening it in the HEIC viewer. If it reports that no HEIC image was found, the file was never HEIC to begin with.

The colours look washed out

iPhones capture in the Display P3 colour space. A converter that ignores the colour profile produces flat or oversaturated results.

The photo is not damaged. The tool that read it took a shortcut.

One HEIC turned into several photos

That is expected. A HEIC is a container, and burst sequences store several images in one file.

Open it in the HEIC viewer to see every frame the file holds, then export only the ones you want.

The bottom line

If you need this done now, use the browser converter — it works on every device and nothing gets uploaded.

If you want the problem to stop recurring, spend thirty seconds in Settings → Camera → Formats → Most Compatible on your iPhone, and your next photo will already be a JPEG.

Need a different format? HEIC to PNG keeps transparency and is lossless, HEIC to PDF binds a set of photos into one document, and every HEIC tool is in one place.

Frequently asked questions

Is converting HEIC to JPG free?

Yes. Every method in this guide is free. Windows, Mac and iPhone each include a built-in converter, and browser-based tools cost nothing because the conversion runs on your own device. Paid software offers nothing extra for this particular job.

Does converting HEIC to JPG reduce quality?

It re-encodes the image once. At quality 90 or above the difference is invisible in normal viewing. The JPG file is usually larger than the HEIC it came from, because JPEG compresses less efficiently than the HEVC compression inside a HEIC.

Can I convert HEIC to JPG without installing anything?

Yes. A browser-based converter needs no installation and works the same on Windows, Mac, Android and iPhone. Windows Photos and Mac Preview are also already on your computer, so neither requires a download.

How do I convert a whole folder of HEIC files at once?

In a browser converter, drop the whole folder in and download the results as one zip. On a Mac, select every photo in Preview first — File → Export then converts all of them in a single pass.

Will converting remove the GPS location from my photo?

It depends on the tool. Some preserve the full EXIF record including coordinates, others discard everything. To see exactly what a photo carries, or to strip it deliberately, use the HEIC EXIF viewer.

How do I stop my iPhone saving photos as HEIC?

Go to Settings → Camera → Formats and choose Most Compatible. Every photo you take after that is a JPEG. This does not convert the photos already in your library — only new ones.

Why does Windows say it can't open my HEIC file?

Windows ships without the HEVC codec that HEIC images are compressed with. Installing the free HEIF Image Extensions from the Microsoft Store fixes it, or you can skip the codec entirely by using a browser tool that carries its own decoder.

What is the difference between HEIC and HEIF?

HEIF is the container format. HEIC is Apple's name for a HEIF image compressed with HEVC. In everyday use the two words point at the same kind of file, and any tool that handles one handles the other.