How to Convert HEIC to JPG (iPhone Photos) — Free & Private

What is a HEIC file?

HEIC (High Efficiency Image Container) is the format Apple uses by default on iPhones since iOS 11. It's roughly half the size of JPG at the same quality — great for storage, terrible for compatibility. Windows 10/11 needs a paid extension to open them, many older Android phones can't preview them, and most CMSes simply refuse to upload them. If you've ever emailed a photo to a colleague and gotten back "I can't open this," HEIC is almost always the culprit.

Why convert HEIC to JPG?

• Email attachments — Outlook and Gmail preview JPG, not HEIC. Many corporate gateways strip HEIC entirely.
• Web uploads — most CMSes (WordPress, Shopify, Squarespace) reject HEIC at the upload step.
• Printing — print labs almost universally require JPG or TIFF.
• Sharing with non-Apple users — Android and Windows preview JPG flawlessly.
• Editing in older software — Photoshop CS6, GIMP, Paint, and many photo tools don't read HEIC.
• Embedding in slides — PowerPoint and Google Slides on Windows can't insert HEIC.

Convert HEIC to JPG in 3 steps

1. Open our HEIC to JPG converter on your phone or computer.
2. Drop your HEIC files into the dropzone (you can batch-convert hundreds at once).
3. Pick JPG, choose a quality (90% is the safe default), and download — done.

Conversion happens in your browser. Your photos never get uploaded anywhere — a real concern given how often people convert ID photos, screenshots of medical results, or personal pictures. See our privacy primer if that matters to you.

Will I lose quality?

JPG is lossy and HEIC is more efficient, so technically yes — but at 90% quality the difference is invisible to the human eye. For sharing, posting, and printing at sizes up to A4, the converted JPG will look identical. The only place you'd notice is pixel-level pixel-peeping at 200% zoom, which nobody actually does in normal use.

What about file size?

A typical 12 MP iPhone photo is around 2–3 MB as HEIC and 4–6 MB as JPG at 90% quality. If your goal is to minimize size and stay compatible, convert to WebP instead — same broad compatibility on modern systems, smaller files than JPG. Our HEIC to WebP converter handles this in one step.

Bonus: turn off HEIC on your iPhone

If you'd rather avoid conversion entirely, go to Settings → Camera → Formats → Most Compatible. Your iPhone will start saving photos as JPG directly. The tradeoff is roughly 2× larger file sizes on your phone, which adds up if you take a lot of photos. Most people who switch end up flipping back to HEIC for storage and converting on demand when they need to share.

HEIC and EXIF metadata

HEIC files often carry GPS coordinates, the camera model, and the exact timestamp. When you convert to JPG, that metadata is usually preserved by default — which is fine for personal use but a privacy risk when you upload to public sites. Our converter offers an option to strip metadata on export. If you're posting photos publicly, leave that option on.

Bulk conversion for photographers

Photographers exporting a shoot directly from an iPhone often end up with hundreds of HEICs. Drop them all into the converter at once — they'll process in parallel using your CPU, and you'll get a single ZIP at the end with every JPG ready to import into Lightroom or upload to a gallery. No upload queue, no per-file size limit beyond what your device's RAM can hold.

FAQ

Does this work on iPhone? Yes. Open the converter in Safari, share a photo to it, and download the JPG straight to Photos or Files.

Can I convert HEIC video (HEVC / .mov)? Video is different — those are HEVC files. For video, use our MOV compressor or convert to MP4.

What about Live Photos? Live Photos are HEIC + a short MOV. The converter handles the HEIC half and gives you a still JPG.

Will it preserve the original photo date? Yes — EXIF dates are kept by default.

Convert your HEIC photos to JPG now — free, private, and no app installation needed.

Keep learning

If you found this useful, a few related guides go deeper on adjacent problems: our file-format reference covers when to pick which format, why file conversion matters in 2026 puts the bigger picture together, and why browser-based conversion is safer covers the privacy architecture every tool on this site is built around. For everyday image work, the image resizer and full converter index are the two pages most readers bookmark.

About this guide

This article is part of the OnlineFileConverter editorial library — practical, vendor-neutral writing on file formats, conversion workflows, and digital privacy. Every recommendation here is something we'd give a friend, not a sponsored placement. Our editorial standards page covers how we update articles, who writes them, and how we handle advertising. If you spot something out of date or want a guide on a topic we haven't covered, tell us — we read every note.

Related converters you can try right now

The three tools below are the ones most readers of this guide reach for next. All free, all browser-based, no signup.

• HEIC to JPG converter — Open iPhone photos on Windows, web apps, and email.
• HEIC to PNG converter — Lossless conversion when you plan to edit further.
• HEIC to WebP converter — Smaller files than JPG with the same compatibility.