How to Turn Off HEIC on iPhone (Save Photos as JPG)

To stop your iPhone saving photos as HEIC, open Settings → Camera → Formats and choose Most Compatible. Every photo you take from that moment is a JPEG.

It takes about thirty seconds and nothing else on the phone changes.

There is one catch worth knowing before you do it, and one second setting that most guides never mention. Both are below.

Where the setting is

Step by step

Open Settings.
Scroll down and tap Camera.
Tap Formats — it is the first item.
Under “Camera Capture”, tap Most Compatible.

That is the whole procedure. There is no confirmation dialog and no restart. The next photo you take is a JPEG.

If you don’t see Formats

The Formats screen only appears on iPhone 7 and newer. Older models never shot HEIC in the first place, so there is nothing to turn off.

On very old iOS versions the option sits directly under Settings → Camera rather than in its own screen. The wording is the same.

What changes immediately

Photos

New stills are written as JPEG instead of HEIC.

Videos

Videos switch from HEVC to H.264 at the same time. This is the part people forget — the setting is not photo-only.

H.264 video plays on essentially everything, which is the point. The trade is file size: expect noticeably larger recordings, especially at 4K.

The catch: this does not convert anything

Here is the part that catches people out, and it is worth being blunt about.

Changing the Formats setting affects only the photos you take afterwards. Every HEIC already in your library stays exactly as it is.

So if you flipped the switch hoping the 4,000 photos on your phone would quietly become JPEGs, they will not. The setting is a fork in time, not a converter.

What to do about the photos you already have

For the existing library you need an actual conversion. Three options, depending on how many photos you are dealing with.

Method 1Convert them in a browser

Drop the files into a converter that runs on your own device. Nothing uploads, there is no limit, and you get a zip back.

This is the only option here that handles hundreds of photos in one pass. If you are reading this on the phone itself, converting HEIC to JPG on iPhone walks through doing it in Safari and compares it with the Files and Shortcuts methods.

Use this when: you have more than a handful, or the photos are private.

Method 2Use the share sheet

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

Note that AirDrop between two Apple devices deliberately keeps the original HEIC, because the receiving device can read it.

Use this when: you need one or two photos right now.

Method 3Let the transfer do it

See the next section — there is a separate setting for exactly this, and it is the one most guides skip.

Use this when: you move photos to a computer regularly.

The second setting most guides miss

Turning off HEIC at the camera fixes new photos. It does nothing for the thousands already on the phone when you plug it into a PC.

There is a separate control for that:

Settings → Photos → scroll to Transfer to Mac or PC → Automatic

With Automatic selected, your iPhone converts photos to JPEG as it copies them across. With Keep Originals, you get the raw HEIC files.

Why this is often the better fix

If your only real problem is “photos look broken on my Windows PC”, this setting solves it without costing you any storage on the phone.

You keep shooting in efficient HEIC, and the JPEG conversion happens on the way out. For a lot of people that is the right answer rather than turning HEIC off entirely.

Should you turn HEIC off at all?

Worth a moment’s thought, because the default exists for a reason.

What you give up

Storage

This is the real cost. HEIC files are roughly half the size of an equivalent JPEG.

A photo that lands at 2 MB in HEIC will typically be 3.5–5 MB as a JPEG. Across a few thousand photos that is several gigabytes of phone storage.

Some container features

HEIC can hold multiple images, depth maps and 16-bit colour in a single file. JPEG is a simpler, older format that cannot.

In practice this rarely matters for everyday shooting. Live Photos and Portrait mode both continue to work in Most Compatible.

What you gain

The photo opens everywhere, with no codec, no extension, and no converter. That is the entire benefit, and for many people it outweighs the storage.

Which one is right for you

Your situation	Setting
You send photos to Windows PCs often	Most Compatible
You share with non-Apple friends and family	Most Compatible
Phone storage is tight	High Efficiency
You shoot a lot of 4K video	High Efficiency
You only ever share within Apple devices	High Efficiency
You just want to stop thinking about it	Most Compatible

There is no wrong answer here. It is a straight trade between storage and compatibility.

Does Most Compatible reduce photo quality?

Not in any way you will see.

The camera captures the same image either way. The difference is only in how that image is written to storage.

Most Compatible does not make your iPhone take worse photos. It writes the same capture as a high-quality JPEG instead of a HEIC, which costs you file size rather than detail.

The honest technical caveat: JPEG uses 8-bit colour where HEIC can store more, and its compression is less efficient. On a normal photo viewed on a normal screen, neither is visible.

📖 Further reading: what a HEIC file is covers the format and why Apple picked it.

It didn’t work — troubleshooting

My files are still .heic

Check when the photo was taken. The setting has no effect on anything shot before you changed it, which is the single most common source of confusion.

Take a fresh photo and check that one instead.

Photos from iCloud are still HEIC

iCloud stores whatever your phone originally uploaded. Old photos come back down in their original format regardless of your current setting.

AirDrop still sends HEIC

This is intentional. AirDrop to another Apple device sends the original file, because the receiving device can open it perfectly well.

To force a JPEG, share via Mail or save to Files first.

My Mac still shows HEIC

macOS reads HEIC natively, so it has no reason to convert. If you need JPEGs on the Mac, use the HEIC to JPG converter or export from Preview.

The setting keeps reverting

It should not. If Formats genuinely resets on its own, that points at a restore from an older backup rather than a bug in the setting itself.

The bottom line

Settings → Camera → Formats → Most Compatible stops the problem for every photo you take from now on.

For the ones already on your phone, run them through the HEIC to JPG converter — it works on the iPhone itself, and nothing gets uploaded.

If you would rather keep the storage savings, set Transfer to Mac or PC to Automatic instead and let the conversion happen only when photos leave the phone.

Need another format? HEIC to PNG is lossless, HEIC to PDF turns a set of photos into one document, and every HEIC tool sits in one place.

Frequently asked questions

How do I stop my iPhone from saving photos as HEIC?

Open Settings, tap Camera, tap Formats, and choose Most Compatible. Every photo you take after that is a JPEG and every video is H.264. The change takes effect on the very next shot, with no restart needed.

Does Most Compatible convert my existing photos?

No. The setting only affects new captures. Photos already in your library stay HEIC until you convert them, which you can do in a browser without uploading anything.

Does Most Compatible reduce photo quality?

Not visibly. Your iPhone captures the same image either way and writes it as a high-quality JPEG. What you lose is efficiency, not detail — the files are roughly twice the size for a similar-looking photo.

How much extra storage will JPEG use?

Expect roughly double. A 12MP photo that lands around 2 MB as HEIC will typically be 3.5 to 5 MB as a JPEG. On a phone where you shoot a lot, that adds up quickly.

I changed the setting but my files are still HEIC. Why?

Two common reasons. The photos you are looking at were taken before the change, or you are viewing photos synced from iCloud that were captured earlier. Check a photo you shot after flipping the setting.

Does turning off HEIC break Live Photos or Portrait mode?

No. Live Photos and Portrait mode both still work in Most Compatible. The still frame is written as a JPEG instead of a HEIC, and the depth and motion data are kept alongside it as before.

Should I turn HEIC off, or just convert when I need to?

If you regularly send photos to Windows PCs or older devices, turn it off and stop thinking about it. If you mostly stay inside Apple's ecosystem and care about storage, leave High Efficiency on and convert the occasional photo.

Is there a setting for photos I transfer to a computer?

Yes, and it is separate. Settings → Photos → Transfer to Mac or PC → Automatic converts photos to JPEG as they transfer, even if you keep shooting in HEIC.