How to Convert HEIC to JPG
Convert HEIC photos to JPG with the Preview app on iPhone, Finder or Preview on a Mac, or Paint on Windows, then set your iPhone camera to shoot JPG from the start.
You will end up with a JPG copy of any iPhone photo, made on the iPhone itself, on a Mac, or on a Windows PC, and you will know how to make your iPhone shoot JPG from the start. HEIC is the file extension of the HEIF photos an iPhone takes, and it has been the default photo format since iOS 11 landed in 2017, on iPhone 7 and later.
HEIC files are great for your phone. They are a lot smaller than JPEG at the same picture quality, and Nokia's HEIF documentation puts the gap at 2.39 times, with JPEG needing on average 139 percent more bitrate to match the same objective quality. But the rest of the world has not caught up. Windows computers, many websites, government upload forms, printing services, and plenty of other tools still do not accept them.
Every method below is built into iOS, macOS, or Windows, or comes from the Microsoft Store. We checked these steps against Apple's iPhone and Mac user guides for iOS 27 and macOS 27 and Microsoft's support page in September 2026.
Convert on iPhone with the Preview app
On iOS 26 and later, the Preview app exports an image as a JPEG without installing anything. Open the Photos app and find the photo you want to convert. Tap the share icon in the bottom left and tap Save to Files. Pick a folder and save it. Now open the Preview app, tap Browse, and open the photo you just saved. Tap the button next to the filename, then tap Export. Select JPEG, and drag the Size slider right for higher quality or left for a smaller file, as Apple's Preview guide describes. Choose a location, then tap Save. The HEIC original stays where it was.
Good to know: Before you convert a photo to send to someone, check what arrives. Apple says photos shared by AirDrop, Messages, or email might be sent as JPEG automatically when the receiving device does not support HEIF.
Convert on Mac using Finder Quick Actions
If you have HEIC files on your Mac, Finder has a built-in conversion tool, so you do not need extra apps. If you do not see Convert Image on macOS 27, open Quick Actions, click More, then Customize, and turn it on in the Extensions settings that open. Open Finder and navigate to your HEIC file. Right-click on it and hover over Quick Actions. On macOS 27, click More, then Convert Image. On macOS Tahoe (26) and earlier, click Convert Image directly. A small dialog pops up. Choose JPEG from the format dropdown, pick your image size, and click Convert to JPEG. The converted file saves in the same folder as the original. Your HEIC file stays untouched. For batch conversions, select multiple HEIC files first. You can click one, then hold Shift and click the last one to select a range, or hold Command and click to pick individual files. Then right-click and follow the same Quick Actions path. Finder converts them all at once.
Convert on Mac using Preview
Preview gives you more control over the output quality, which is useful if you care about file size. Right-click the HEIC file and choose Open With then Preview. Go to File in the menu bar and click Export. Choose JPEG from the Format dropdown. A quality slider appears. Keep it near the high-quality end for photos you will print or edit again, and move it left only when the file has to fit an upload size limit. Click Save. For batch conversion in Preview, select multiple HEIC files in Finder, right-click, and open them all in Preview. In Preview's sidebar, press Cmd+A to select all thumbnails, which is how Apple's Preview guide converts several images at once. Then go to File and export them the same way. Choose a destination folder, set the format to JPEG, and Preview exports every file at once.
Convert on Windows using Paint
Windows does not open iPhone HEIC files out of the box, and the fix is two extensions rather than one. Open the Microsoft Store and install HEIF Image Extensions, which is free and published by Microsoft. Then install HEVC Video Extensions, which Microsoft lists at $0.99. Microsoft is explicit about needing both, in its words "You'll need both, even if you only plan on using photos and not videos". The reason is that the pixels inside a HEIC file are compressed with HEVC, so without the HEVC decoder the image extension can open the container but not read the picture inside it. With both installed, restart the Photos app, and Microsoft says the files will open. Now right-click your HEIC file, choose Open with, and select Paint. Go to File, click Save as, and choose JPEG picture. Pick a location and click Save. The Photos app works too. Open the HEIC file in Photos, click the three-dot menu, and choose Save as. Change the file type to JPEG and save.
Heads up: If you would rather not buy the HEVC extension, Microsoft gives two free routes. Plug your iPhone into the PC and move the photos over, because Microsoft says many devices convert HEIC photos to a more common format on transfer (the setting in step 5 controls this on an iPhone), or email the photos to yourself. For photos only, Microsoft says uploading them to OneDrive also converts them.
Stop your iPhone from shooting HEIC entirely
If you are tired of converting photos one at a time, you can tell your iPhone to shoot JPG from the start. Open Settings and tap Camera. Tap Formats. Switch from High Efficiency to Most Compatible. Every photo you take from now on will be a standard JPEG. Videos will use H.264 instead of HEVC. Apple's support page on HEIF and HEVC explains both format options, and says High Efficiency uses less storage while preserving the same visual quality. If you take a lot of photos, switching to Most Compatible will use noticeably more storage on your phone.
Good to know: You can also have photos convert when you move them to a computer. Go to Settings, tap Apps, tap Photos, then under 'Transfer to Mac or PC' leave Automatic selected. On iOS 18 and later, Photos settings sit under Apps rather than in the main Settings list. Apple says photos you import into a Mac or PC this way might be converted to JPEG, and Keep Originals turns that off.
If a converted JPG is still too large for an upload form, export it again with the Size slider in step 1 or the quality slider in step 3 moved left. Switching the camera to Most Compatible only changes new photos, so convert an existing library with the batch methods in steps 2 and 3. If you only share photos between iPhones, iPads, and Macs, leave the camera on High Efficiency, because Apple says iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra and later open HEIF natively. For a wider cleanup once your photos are converted, our guide on how to declutter digital files covers deleting and organizing your photo library.
Questions we get asked about this
Answers from experience, not a textbook.
Yes, a little, because the image gets decoded from one compressed format and re-encoded as JPEG, and JPEG compression discards some detail. Keep the quality setting high when you export (the Size slider in Preview on iPhone, the quality slider in Preview on Mac), and convert from the HEIC original each time rather than re-saving a JPEG you already converted, so the loss does not stack up.
Apple switched to HEIC as the default camera format in iOS 11 back in 2017. The reason is file size. On Nokia's objective-quality measurements a JPEG needs about 2.4 times the data of a HEIC to match it, so the same storage holds a lot more photos. The format also supports transparency and more than 8 bits per color channel, neither of which JPEG can do.
Yes. On a Mac, select several HEIC files in Finder and use Convert Image from Quick Actions (step 2), or open them together in Preview and export them in one go (step 3). On Windows, plug your iPhone in and move the photos over, because Microsoft says many devices convert HEIC photos to a more common format on transfer, or upload them to OneDrive, which Microsoft says converts photos too. For a large library, a computer is faster than converting one photo at a time on the iPhone.
Try the upload first. Post from the Instagram or Facebook app on your iPhone and pick the photo from your library. If it appears in the post preview, there is nothing to convert. Convert by hand only for places that reject HEIC, like some government portals, printing services, and older email clients. WordPress is a mixed case. Since version 6.7 it converts HEIC uploads to JPEG on its own, but only if the web server's image library supports HEIC. If it does not, WordPress shows a warning asking you to convert the file yourself.
HEIF stands for High Efficiency Image File Format. It is the overall standard, defined by ISO/IEC 23008-12. HEIC is the file extension for HEIF images compressed with the HEVC codec, which is what an iPhone saves. So HEIF is the container format and HEIC is what you see on your file names, and in practice people use the two names for the same iPhone photos.