HEIC to JPG Converter - Convert iPhone HEIC Photos to JPG Free

By the team at VidHaul

HEIC to JPG is the most common photo fix for anyone who owns an iPhone or gets photos from one. Since iOS 11, iPhones save photos as HEIC (also called HEIF) when the camera is set to High Efficiency. The files are small and look great on Apple devices, but many Windows PCs, Android phones, office programs and upload forms can’t open them. This HEIC to JPG converter changes them into normal JPG files right inside your browser, up to 30 photos at a time, so you can convert HEIC to JPG on Windows, Mac, iPhone or Android without installing anything. Below you will find the exact method the tool uses, step-by-step help for each device, how to stop your iPhone from making HEIC files, and what happens to quality, size and the hidden location data in your photos.

How does the HEIC to JPG converter work?

The tool does three things for each photo, all on your device.

1. Decode. First it asks your browser to open the HEIC file and turn it upright using its stored orientation. Safari can read HEIC by itself. Chrome, Edge and Firefox can’t, so the tool then loads heic2any, a small open-source HEIC reader that runs in the page. It loads only the first time you need it and takes a few seconds.
2. Draw. The decoded picture is drawn at its full size onto a white canvas. White matters only if the image has transparent parts, because JPG has no transparency.
3. Save as JPG. The canvas is saved as JPEG at the quality on the slider, 92% by default. The pixel size is never changed.

Worked example (computed). A standard 12-megapixel iPhone photo is 4032 × 3024 pixels. Once decoded, it takes 4032 × 3024 × 4 bytes = about 48.8 MB of memory, and the canvas needs the same again, so about 98 MB while that one photo is being converted. The JPG you download is still 4032 × 3024. That memory is freed before the next photo starts, which is why a batch of 30 does not need 30 times as much. We have not yet measured a real iPhone HEIC file in our own tests, so we give no HEIC file sizes on this page. In our tests with other efficient formats, the JPG at 92% was 2 to 4.6 times bigger than the source file (for example a 21.8 KB AVIF became a 100.1 KB JPG), so expect the JPG to be bigger than the HEIC too.

How to convert HEIC to JPG on Windows

This is the most common case: you copied photos from an iPhone with a cable, from iCloud or from a shared folder, and Windows shows a blank icon or says it can’t open them. Open this page in Chrome, Edge or Firefox. Select the HEIC files in File Explorer (Ctrl+A selects all files in a folder) and drag them into the box. When the list says all photos are ready, press Download all (ZIP), open the ZIP and you have normal JPGs that work in the Photos app, Paint, Word and every website.

Windows 10

Windows 10 needs an extra image extension to show HEIC at all. If you only want JPGs to share, print or upload, converting here is quicker than setting that up.

Windows 11

Windows 11 can show HEIC once the HEIF Image Extension from the Microsoft Store is installed. Even then, many programs and websites still refuse the files. Converting gives you files that work everywhere, not just on your own PC.

How to change HEIC to JPG on Mac

Macs open HEIC without trouble, so you usually convert because someone on Windows needs the photos, or a website only accepts JPG. Use Safari: it decodes HEIC itself, so it skips the extra reader and is the fastest choice. Drag photos straight from Finder. If they are in the Photos app, drag them from Photos to the desktop first, or straight into the box. For a single photo, the Preview app also works: open it, choose File, Export and pick JPEG. For many photos at once, this page is quicker.

How to convert HEIC to JPG on iPhone

Open this page in Safari and tap the box. Choose photos from your library or from the Files app. After conversion, tap Download for each photo; the JPG is saved in the Downloads folder of the Files app, from where you can share it, attach it to an email or upload it to a form. If you converted several, Download all (ZIP) saves one ZIP file, and tapping it in Files unpacks the JPGs.

How to convert HEIC to JPG on Android and Chromebook

Android users usually receive HEIC files from friends with iPhones, through email, Google Drive or a cloud link. Open this page in Chrome, tap the box and pick the files from Downloads or your file manager. The first conversion loads the HEIC reader, so give it a few seconds; after that every photo is quicker.

Samsung phones

Some Samsung Galaxy phones can show HEIC in the Gallery app, but apps and websites you send them to often can’t. The steps are the same: Chrome, tap the box, choose the files, download the JPGs.

Chromebook

Open the page in Chrome, drag the files from the Files app, then save the ZIP. Everything happens on the Chromebook itself.

How to batch convert HEIC to JPG

To convert many HEIC files to JPG at once, select them together and drop them in, up to 30 per batch. The list is worked through one photo at a time, and each photo’s memory is freed before the next one starts. The chart shows why that matters on a phone: a single large photo needs a lot of memory while it is being converted.

On a laptop or desktop this is never a problem. On an older phone, very large 48 MP photos can be slow, and if the browser runs short of memory a photo may show “This file couldn’t be read”. Then convert fewer photos per batch, or use a computer for those big shots. For more than 30 photos, press Clear after saving the ZIP and drop in the next group.

How to change your iPhone from HEIC to JPG

If you always need JPG, you can stop the iPhone from making HEIC files. Two settings matter, and they do different things:

Most Compatible makes files a bit bigger and uses more storage on the phone. Many people keep High Efficiency on the phone and convert only the photos they need to share. The old photos in your library stay HEIC either way, so you still need a converter for those.

How to convert HEIC to JPG without losing quality

JPG is a lossy format, so strictly speaking every HEIC to JPG conversion loses a tiny bit of detail. In practice you can make that loss invisible:

• Full size is kept. The tool never reduces the pixel count. A 12 MP photo stays 12 MP.
• Raise the quality for prints or editing. Open More options and move the Quality slider to 95 to 100%. The file gets bigger, but fine textures like hair and leaves stay crisp.
• Lower it for sharing. For WhatsApp, email or forms, 80 to 85% looks the same on a phone screen and gives a smaller file.
• Need truly lossless? Choose PNG under More options, or use HEIC to PNG. Expect much bigger files.

If a form needs a size limit such as 100 KB or 200 KB, convert first and then use the image compressor, which finds the highest quality that fits. If it also asks for an exact width and height, the image resizer does that.

Can I convert HEIC to JPG without a converter?

Sometimes, yes. On a Mac, Preview can export a single photo as JPEG. On iPhone, Most Compatible makes new photos JPG from the start. When you import photos from an iPhone with a cable, Apple says they may be converted to JPG unless Keep Originals is chosen. These options are fine for a few photos, but they don’t help with HEIC files someone sent you on Windows or Android, and they don’t batch. That is where a browser converter is easier: nothing to install, any device.

What happens to location, date and camera details?

A HEIC photo usually stores hidden details: the GPS location where it was taken, the date and time, and the phone model. This converter draws the JPG fresh from the picture’s pixels, and a JPG saved this way carries none of those details. That is good for privacy when you post or send photos. The downside: some photo apps sort by the date stored inside the photo, so converted JPGs may sort by the file date instead. If you want to see what a photo contains before you share it, the remove EXIF data tool lists it and removes it from JPG, PNG and WebP files without re-saving the picture.

Live Photos and burst photos

A Live Photo is a HEIC still plus a short separate video file. This tool converts the still picture. If you want the moving part, that is a .MOV file you can turn into MP4 with MOV to MP4 or into an animation with video to GIF. If one HEIC file holds several pictures, only the first one is converted.

How accurate is the HEIC to JPG converter?

The picture comes out at exactly the same pixel size, upright, at the JPG quality you choose. A few honest limits:

• Not yet measured on real iPhone files. Our own tests so far used JPG, PNG, WebP and AVIF test images. We have not measured a real iPhone HEIC file yet, so we don’t publish HEIC sizes or timings.
• Colours. iPhones often record photos with a wide colour range. The browser draws them into a standard (sRGB) canvas before saving, so on a wide-colour screen very saturated reds or greens can look a touch less vivid than in the iPhone Photos app. On most screens you won’t see a difference.
• Speed outside Safari. In Chrome, Edge and Firefox the HEIC reader is JavaScript code, slower than Safari’s built-in decoder. Large photos can take a few seconds each on a phone.
• Unusual files. Some HEIC variants (for example from other camera makers) may not decode; the page then says the file couldn’t be read instead of making a broken JPG.
• Hidden data is dropped. GPS, date and camera details are not copied, as explained above. If you need them in the JPG, this tool is not the right one.

Why this tool is different

Most online HEIC to JPG converters upload your photos to a server, convert them there and send them back. Private photos of family, documents or your home then sit on someone else’s computer for a while. This converter works in the page itself: your browser reads the file from your disk, decodes it (Safari natively, other browsers with the open-source heic2any reader that runs inside the page), draws it on a canvas and saves the JPG back to your disk. No photo is sent anywhere, so there is no upload wait, and after the page has loaded the conversion works even without a connection.

It is also built for the way people really get HEIC files: in groups. You can drop 30 at once, the settings apply to all of them, and one ZIP saves the lot. Changing a setting under More options converts the whole list again automatically. Copy link with these settings saves your chosen output and quality in a link, so you can send a family member a link that is set up the same way.

What we measure

For each photo the tool measures the original file size, the decoded width and height, and the size of the new JPG, and shows them in the list: size before, size after and pixel size. Copy summary copies those numbers as text. That is all it measures.

What we do not do: we don’t score image quality, we don’t sharpen, brighten or “enhance” the photo, we don’t resize it, and we don’t copy the hidden metadata. We also don’t collect anything about your photos; there is no upload to collect from.

After converting, you can put several JPGs into one document with JPG to PDF.

Only convert photos you own or have the right to use.

Sources

• Apple Support: Using HEIF or HEVC media on Apple devices, for Most Compatible and Keep Originals.
• heic2any on GitHub, the open-source HEIC reader used outside Safari.
• MDN: createImageBitmap(), which decodes the photo and applies its orientation.
• MDN: HTMLCanvasElement.toBlob(), which saves the JPG with the chosen quality.
• MDN: Image file type and format guide.