Will converting HEIC to JPG lose quality?

A little, since JPG is a lossy format. At a quality setting in the low nineties the difference is invisible in normal viewing. What you give up is the ten-bit colour depth HEIC can store, which matters for heavy editing and rarely for viewing.

Does Windows 11 open HEIC files out of the box?

No. Windows 11 includes the free HEIF Image Extensions so it recognises the container, but the HEVC decoder that reads the picture inside is a separate paid item in the Microsoft Store. That gap is why thumbnails sometimes appear while the photo still refuses to open.

How do I stop my iPhone saving photos as HEIC?

Go to Settings, then Camera, then Formats, and choose Most Compatible. The camera will shoot JPG from then on, using roughly twice the storage per photo. Also check Settings, Photos, Transfer to Mac or PC — set to Automatic it converts on transfer, set to Keep Originals it does not.

Guide

Why won't my HEIC photos open?

Q: Is HEIC the same as HEIF?

Nearly. HEIF is the container format. HEIC is that container holding HEVC-compressed pictures, which is what Apple writes. Sony uses .hif for the same thing. AVIF is the same container with a different, royalty-free codec inside, which is why browsers support AVIF but not HEIC.

Q: Why can my browser open AVIF but not HEIC?

Licensing cost. AVIF uses AV1, which was designed to be royalty-free, so browsers can ship it at no cost. HEVC carries per-device patent licence fees, so they do not.

Q: Why do some HEIC files open and others do not?

Usually because the ones that open are not really HEIC. iOS converts to JPG when sharing or emailing, and under some transfer settings, while leaving the extension alone in a few paths. File size is a good tell: a HEIC is normally around half the size of the same picture as a JPG.

You copied photos off an iPhone and Windows shows a row of blank icons. Double-click one and Photos says it can't display it, or offers to sell you something from the Store. The files aren't broken, there's nothing wrong with your computer, and no update will fix it. The reason is duller and stranger than that: it's a licensing bill nobody wants to pay.

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The short answer

A HEIC file is a box with a compressed picture inside it. The box is an open standard that anything can read. The picture inside is compressed with HEVC — the same codec used for 4K video — and HEVC is covered by patents held by several hundred companies across three separate licensing pools. Every device that decodes it owes a fee.

Apple pays that fee, so iPhones and Macs open HEIC files silently. Microsoft chose not to pay it on every Windows licence, so Windows ships without the decoder and offers it as a paid extension instead. Google made the same call for Chrome. That is the entire story. Your photos are fine.

Why your phone started doing this

iOS 11 switched the default camera format from JPG to HEIC in 2017, and most people never noticed, because Apple hid the seam. Within Apple's own world every app reads HEIC. When you AirDrop, email or message a photo, iOS silently converts it to JPG on the way out. You can go years without seeing a .heic file.

You see them the moment you bypass that conversion — plugging the phone into a PC, copying from a memory card, pulling files out of a backup, or downloading the originals from iCloud. Those are the true files the camera wrote, and they arrive without the translation layer.

It's worth saying that HEIC is genuinely the better format. Same picture, roughly half the file size, ten-bit colour instead of eight, and proper support for transparency and image sequences. The compatibility problem isn't a flaw in the format. It's a consequence of how it's licensed.

Four ways to fix it

1. Convert the files (free)

Turn the HEICs into JPGs and the problem disappears everywhere at once — Windows, old software, forms that reject anything but JPG, printing services, the lot. The catch with most online converters is that they upload your photos to somebody else's server to do it, which is a real consideration for pictures of your family, your documents or your home.

Our HEIC to JPG converter does the decoding inside your browser instead, using the same open-source decoder that Linux and VLC use. Nothing is uploaded, there's no limit and no watermark, and the capture date and camera details are carried across so your photos still sort correctly.

2. Buy Microsoft's extension (about a dollar)

Search the Microsoft Store for HEVC Video Extensions. It's a small paid item, and it teaches Windows to read the format everywhere — File Explorer thumbnails, Photos, Paint. If you deal with HEIC files constantly on one machine, it's the least friction for the money.

One trap worth knowing: there is also a free HEIF Image Extensions package, and on its own it usually isn't enough. The free one teaches Windows about the box; the paid one teaches it about the picture inside. People install the free one, see no change, and conclude Windows is broken.

3. Stop your phone making them

On the iPhone, go to Settings → Camera → Formats and pick Most Compatible. From that moment the camera shoots JPG and you never meet this problem again. Photos you already took stay as they are.

The cost is storage — roughly double per photo — and you give up ten-bit colour. If your phone is always near full, it's the wrong trade. If you move photos to a Windows machine every week, it's the right one.

There's a second, separate setting worth checking while you're there: Settings → Photos → Transfer to Mac or PC. Set to Automatic, the phone converts to JPG as it transfers. Set to Keep Originals, you get true HEIC files. If your photos sometimes arrive readable and sometimes not, this setting is usually why.

4. Use software that already reads it

Plenty of free software has the decoder built in and always has. VLC opens HEIC images, oddly enough. IrfanView, XnView and GIMP all handle them. So does Google Photos in a browser, and Adobe's applications. If you only need to look at the pictures, installing one of these is quicker than converting anything.

Things that look like the problem but aren't

Renaming .heic to .jpg. This does nothing except confuse whatever opens it next. The extension is a label; the bytes inside are unchanged, and no amount of relabelling makes Windows able to decode HEVC.
Updating Windows. There's no update coming. It's a licensing decision, not a missing feature.
The photos being corrupt. Almost never. If one machine shows a blank thumbnail and an iPhone shows the picture, the file is perfect and the machine simply can't read it.
Emailing them to yourself. This works, and it's genuinely useful in a hurry — but iOS shrinks and recompresses on the way out, so what lands in your inbox is a smaller, softer copy than what you shot.

Before you share them anywhere

While you have these files in hand, it's worth knowing what else is inside them. A photo from a phone usually carries the exact time it was taken, the device that took it, and — if location services were on — the coordinates of where you were standing, accurate to a few metres. That travels with the file when you send it to someone.

You can see exactly what a photo is carrying, and strip it out, before anything goes public.

Frequently asked questions

Is HEIC the same as HEIF?

Nearly. HEIF is the container format — the box. HEIC is that box with HEVC-compressed pictures inside, which is what Apple writes. Sony uses .hif for essentially the same thing. AVIF is the same box again with a different, royalty-free codec inside, which is precisely why browsers support AVIF but not HEIC.

Will converting to JPG lose quality?

A little, unavoidably — JPG is a lossy format, so re-encoding costs something. At a quality setting in the low nineties the difference is invisible in normal viewing. What you actually give up is the ten-bit colour depth HEIC can store, which matters for heavy editing and almost never for looking at pictures.

Why can my browser open AVIF but not HEIC?

Money. AVIF uses AV1, which was built by a consortium specifically to be royalty-free, so browsers can ship it at no cost. HEVC has per-device licence fees, so they don't.

Why do some HEIC files open and others don't?

Usually because the ones that open aren't really HEIC. iOS converts to JPG in a lot of paths — sharing, emailing, some transfer settings — while leaving the extension alone in a few of them. Checking the actual file size is a good tell: a HEIC is normally around half what the same picture would be as a JPG.

Does Windows 11 handle HEIC out of the box?

No. Windows 11 includes the free HEIF Image Extensions, so it recognises the container, but the HEVC decoder that reads the picture inside is still a separate paid item in the Store. That gap is why so many people find thumbnails appearing but the photo refusing to open.

Can I convert a whole folder at once?

Yes. The converter takes as many files as you can drop on it and hands back a ZIP at the end. There's no cap and nothing is uploaded, so a thousand holiday photos are as private as one.