HEIC Converter

Turn iPhone HEIC and HEIF photos into a JPG, PNG or WebP that other software will actually open.

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What this tool does

HEIC is the container Apple has used for camera photos since iOS 11, and HEIF is the wider standard behind it. Inside, the picture is coded with HEVC, the same compression as H.265 video, which is why an iPhone photo is roughly half the size of the JPG it replaced. The saving is real; the compatibility is not. Plenty of desktop software, upload forms and older Android handsets still refuse the file outright, or accept it and then show nothing.

The conversion runs on an OmniKitly machine rather than in this tab, and the reason is worth stating rather than hiding. Chrome, Firefox and Edge decode nothing at all when handed an HEIC; Safari on a recent Mac or iPhone manages it, because the operating system supplies the codec, but a converter that only worked there would leave most visitors staring at an empty canvas. So the file travels up over an encrypted connection, heif-convert — the libheif utility, built against the libde265 decoder — writes the decoded picture out as a PNG, sharp re-encodes that PNG in the format you picked, and the upload, the converted file and the job record are removed together when the job expires a few hours later. Upscale Image is the only other tool in the image section that works this way; everything else in it stays on your machine.

Three settings sit beside the drop zone. The output format is JPG, PNG or WebP. The quality slider runs from 10 to 100 and starts at 88; it is the encoder setting for JPG and WebP, and it does nothing for PNG, which is written at maximum compression and quantised down to a 256-colour palette. That makes PNG output smaller than a full-colour PNG would be, but it can band visibly across a sky or a soft gradient, so it is the wrong choice for a photograph unless the software receiving it accepts nothing else.

The third setting, Keep the photo's EXIF data, deserves a plain answer in both directions. Switched off, the output is written with no metadata whatsoever, so the capture date, the camera model and the GPS coordinates are simply absent from the copy. Left on, which is the default, whatever survived the decoding step is carried across — and because the photo passes through an intermediate PNG on the way, a tag that intermediate did not carry cannot be put back afterwards. Treat a kept EXIF block as likely rather than certain, and check the result in Image Metadata Viewer when the date matters. Rotation is a separate mechanism and a safer bet: libheif applies it while decoding, so a photo shot sideways arrives upright instead of relying on a tag the next program may ignore.

The ceilings are narrow but worth knowing first. Conversion runs one way only: there is no HEIC among the output formats, so nothing here puts a photo back into Apple's container. Only the master image is decoded, which leaves out the extras an iPhone files alongside it — the depth map behind Portrait mode, the gain map that drives HDR display, and the short QuickTime clip that makes a Live Photo move, which is a separate file this tool never receives. A picture is refused above roughly 100 megapixels, each file must be 200 MB or smaller, and one job carries at most fifty of them.

How to use it

  1. Add the photos. Files ending .heic, .heif or .hif, the last of those being what some Sony and Canon bodies write. Up to fifty go up as one job and are converted on the same settings.
  2. Choose JPG, PNG or WebP. JPG for anything that has to open everywhere, WebP where a lighter file on a web page matters, PNG only when the software receiving it will take nothing else.
  3. Set the quality slider. 88 suits most photographs; drop it when the file size matters more than fine detail. The slider drives the JPG and WebP encoders and is ignored for PNG.
  4. Decide about the EXIF data. Leave it on to carry the date, camera and location tags over where they survive the decode. Switch it off before sharing a photo whose GPS coordinates you would rather not hand over with it.
  5. Collect the converted files. Each photo comes back under its own name with the new extension. Download them before the retention window closes, since the job and its files go together when it expires.

Processing & privacy

Secure server processing. This operation requires temporary server processing.

Common use cases

Sending photos to a Windows or Android user

The recipient opens a JPG without installing anything, instead of an attachment their machine describes as an unknown file.

An upload form that rejects the file

Job portals, insurance claims and marketplace listings frequently accept JPG and PNG only, and say so after you have already picked the photo.

Putting a phone photo on a website

WebP output keeps the modern compression while being a format every current browser can actually display in an img tag.

Opening a photo in older editing software

Applications from before 2017 have no idea what HEIC is; converting first is quicker than hunting for a codec pack.

Sharing a picture without the location

Untick the EXIF switch and the converted copy carries no coordinates, so a holiday photo does not also publish an address.

Questions

Why does this tool upload my photo when most of the image tools do not?
Because the browsers most people use cannot decode HEIC. The image tools that edit pixels read your file into a canvas and work on it there; with an HEVC-coded photo that first step fails outright in Chrome, Firefox and Edge, so libheif does the decoding on the server instead. Upscale Image is the only other tool in the section that leaves your device.
What happens to the photo afterwards?
The upload, the converted file and the job record are removed together once the short retention window passes, which is a matter of hours rather than days. No thumbnail or second copy is made along the way, so nothing else is left behind.
Which format should I pick?
JPG unless you have a reason not to — it is what receiving software expects. WebP is smaller at the same visible quality and is right for the web. PNG here is quantised to 256 colours, which is fine for a screenshot or flat artwork and poor for a photograph, so choose it only when something downstream demands PNG.
Does the converted photo keep the date and the GPS location?
Only with the EXIF switch left on, and only as far as the decoding step carries those tags — the photo becomes an intermediate PNG before the final file is written, and anything lost at that point cannot be recovered. Switching the setting off is the reliable direction: the output is then written with no metadata at all.
Can it convert a JPG back into HEIC?
No. The output formats are JPG, PNG and WebP, so this converts away from Apple's format and not towards it. If you need the original HEIC again, keep it — the conversion cannot be reversed from the copy.
Why did my Live Photo stop moving?
The motion lives in a separate .mov file that sits beside the .heic on the phone. Only the still image is converted here, so what you get is the photograph rather than the short clip.
How much does the re-encode cost in quality?
The HEVC picture is decoded and then encoded again, and JPG and WebP are both lossy, so something is given up even at 88 — usually too little to see. Convert from the original HEIC each time rather than from an earlier conversion, since the passes compound.

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