How to Convert HEIC to JPG — on Any Device, Without Uploading Your Photos

What HEIC is, and why your iPhone uses it

HEIC is the photo format iPhones have used by default since iOS 11. It is built on a standard called HEIF (High Efficiency Image File Format), which is why you will sometimes see the extension .heif instead. Its selling point is size: a HEIC photo takes up far less storage than a JPG of similar quality, which adds up quickly on a phone holding thousands of pictures.

The catch is that the rest of the world still runs on JPG. Many upload forms only accept JPG or PNG, a Windows PC may need an extra extension before it can display HEIC, and older apps simply show an error. Your photos are fine; the software on the other end just cannot read them.

Convert HEIC to JPG in four steps

1. 1
   Open the converter. Go to pdfgami.com/heic-to-jpg in any current browser — iPhone, Android, Mac or Windows. No install, no account.
2. 2
   Pick JPG or PNG. JPG is the right choice almost every time. Leave the quality slider at 92% unless you have a reason to change it.
3. 3
   Drop your photos.One photo or a whole folder's worth. Each one shows up on the page, with its size in pixels and its new file size, the moment it is converted.
4. 4
   Download. Press Download all to get every photo in one ZIP file, or Save under any single photo. The new files keep their original names, with .jpg in place of .heic.

Why Chrome, Edge and Firefox fetch a decoder

Before a photo can become a JPG, something has to read the HEIC. Safari on iPhone, iPad and Mac can do that on its own, so there the converter uses the browser directly and nothing extra is downloaded.

Chrome, Edge and Firefox cannot read HEIC. For those browsers the page loads libheif, the open-source HEIC decoder, compiled to WebAssembly so it can run inside the tab. It is about 0.7 MB, it is fetched only the first time you convert, and your browser caches it afterwards. While it loads, the page says so; once it is there, later photos start immediately.

That decoder is the only download converting causes, and it travels towards you, not away. If the connection drops before it arrives, the page says so and offers a retry.

JPG or PNG: what “without losing quality” means

Honest answer first: converting to JPG always loses a little detail, whichever tool you use — that is how JPG compression works. The quality slider runs from 60% to 100% and starts at 92%, where the difference is not visible in ordinary photos.

Changed your mind after converting? Switch the format or move the slider, and the converter offers to apply the new settings to the photos already done — no need to drop them again. Photos keep their full original dimensions; this tool does not resize. If a website wants smaller files, run the JPGs through Compress Image, which can scale them down and aim for a target size.

Converting a whole folder at once

There is no limit on how many photos you drop, and you can add more while a batch is running. They are converted one after another rather than all at once. That is deliberate: a decoded 12-megapixel photo takes a lot of memory, and doing dozens at once is how a phone browser runs out and closes the tab. You still do not wait for the whole batch — each photo appears the moment it is finished, and a counter shows how far along you are.

When everything is done, Download all packs every converted photo into a single ZIP file, so you are not clicking through a hundred save prompts. If two photos share a name, the copy in the ZIP gets a number added so neither overwrites the other. You can still save any photo individually.

Location, date and camera details

A photo from your phone carries hidden details alongside the picture: often the GPS location where it was taken, the camera model and the date and time. The converter carries over only the picture itself. None of that information is copied into the JPG or PNG.

There are two sides to that. The good side is privacy: send the converted photo to anyone, or post it anywhere, and it does not reveal where you were standing. The other side is that photo apps may sort a converted photo by the day you converted it rather than the day you took it. If order matters, keep the original HEIC files too.

Live Photos, bursts and renamed files

A single HEIC file can contain more than one image. For a burst, or the still from a Live Photo, the converter produces the primary image — the one your Photos app shows — as one JPG. The moving part of a Live Photo is not in the HEIC at all; the iPhone stores it as a separate short video file.

The converter recognises HEIC by what is inside the file, not by its name. So a photo whose extension was changed, written in capitals, or saved as .heif still converts when you drop it. A file that is not HEIC — say a JPG that slipped into the selection — is skipped with a short message. For JPG, PNG and WebP, use the Image Converter.

Other ways: iPhone settings, sharing, Windows

• Make the iPhone shoot JPG. Go to Settings, then Camera, then Formats, and pick Most Compatible. New photos are saved as JPG from then on. Photos already taken stay HEIC, and JPGs take noticeably more storage.
• Share or export from Photos. When you send a photo from the Photos app by email or to many apps, the iPhone often converts it to JPG automatically. That is handy for one or two photos, but it is not always predictable.
• Open HEIC on Windows. Windows can display HEIC once the HEIF Image Extensions and HEVC Video Extensions are installed from the Microsoft Store. Whether they come pre-installed, and whether they are free, can vary by PC and region.

These fix things on your own devices. When photos have to go somewhere else — a website, a colleague's PC, a print shop — JPG is what works everywhere. The converter sits with the other browser-only image tools.

Frequently asked questions