Convert HEIC to JPEG
Drop a HEIC file below and get a JPEG back. The conversion happens on your own machine, so nothing is uploaded and there is no size or quantity limit beyond what your browser can hold in memory.
Drop images here
Ctrl/⌘ VPaste a screenshot or copied image
Accepts HEIC
Lower means a smaller file. 75 is a good default for photos.
100% in your browser Files are never uploaded.
Why convert HEIC to JPEG?
Plenty of websites, content management systems and older desktop programs reject HEIC uploads outright. JPEG is accepted just about everywhere, and that alone accounts for most of these conversions.
Expect the JPEG file to come out larger than the HEIC you started with. That is the price of the broader compatibility and simpler decoding JPEG gives you.
HEIC can carry transparency; JPEG cannot. Transparent pixels are composited onto white during conversion, so a logo with a see-through background will come out sitting on a white rectangle.
Both formats are lossy. Every re-encode discards a little more detail, so it is worth starting from the original rather than from a copy that has already been through this a few times.
Every iPhone since iOS 11 saves photos as HEIC unless you tell it otherwise. Windows 10 cannot open them without installing a codec, plenty of websites reject the upload outright, and older editing software does not know what to do with them. None of that means HEIC is a bad format — it fits roughly the same picture into half the space. It just means Apple moved years ahead of everyone else, and you are the one standing in the gap.
Before you convert
Switching your iPhone to "Most Compatible" does not fix the photos you already took
Settings → Camera → Formats → Most Compatible makes the camera shoot JPEG from that moment on. It does not go back and re-encode your library. If you are here because of photos already on the phone, that setting is not the answer — those still need converting.
Quality 100 makes the file bigger, not better
HEIC uses HEVC intra-frame coding, which is roughly twice as efficient as JPEG. Ask JPEG to reproduce the same picture at quality 100 and it needs far more data to do it with an older toolbox — a 2 MB HEIC can come out as an 8 MB JPEG that looks no better to your eye. Somewhere around 85 to 90 is where the curve flattens: below that you start seeing artefacts, above it you are paying megabytes for nothing.
Some things cannot make the trip
HEIC is a container that can hold several images plus extra data. JPEG holds exactly one picture. That difference is the whole story: anything relying on the container structure has nowhere to land. This is a property of the format, not a limitation of the converter — no tool can put a depth map into a file with no place to keep it.
What carries over
- Capture time and date
- GPS coordinates
- Camera model and lens
- Exposure, aperture, ISO
- Orientation tag
What does not
- Burst sequence grouping
- Portrait mode depth map
- The moving part of a Live Photo
- Non-destructive edit history
HEIC vs JPEG at a glance
| Property | HEIC | JPEG |
|---|---|---|
| Compression | Lossy | Lossy |
| Transparency | Yes | No |
| Typical file size | 50-60% of an equivalent JPEG | 100% of an equivalent JPEG |
| Compatibility | Native on Apple devices; often rejected by web uploads | Opens everywhere, including decades-old software |
| Usually comes from | iPhone and iPad photo libraries | Digital cameras and photo sharing |
Frequently asked questions
Are my HEIC files uploaded anywhere?
No. The decoder and encoder are WebAssembly modules that run inside this page. The network tab may show a codec downloading the first time you use a format, but no request contains your file. On supported browsers, a codec that has already been used is cached so the same conversion can work offline.
Is there a file size or quantity limit?
There is no limit imposed by us. The practical ceiling is your device’s memory, since the image has to be held uncompressed while converting. On a typical laptop, images up to around 100 megapixels convert without trouble.
Will converting to JPEG lose quality?
JPEG is a lossy format, so some data is discarded. At the default quality setting the difference is not visible at normal viewing sizes. If you need an exact copy of the pixels, choose PNG instead.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes. The same WebAssembly modules run on mobile browsers. Conversion is slower than on a desktop because phone CPUs are weaker, and very large images are more likely to hit memory limits.
Why does my iPhone save photos as HEIC?
Apple switched to HEIC in iOS 11 because it fits roughly the same picture into about half the space of a JPEG. The trade-off is patchy support outside Apple’s own ecosystem, which is exactly why so many uploads get rejected. You can tell the camera to shoot JPEG instead under Settings → Camera → Formats → Most Compatible, at the cost of the space saving.
What quality setting should I use?
For photographs, 75 to 85 is the range where most people cannot tell the result from the original at normal viewing size. Below about 60 you start seeing blocky artefacts around sharp edges. Above 90 the file grows quickly in exchange for very little visible gain.