What is HEIC? The iPhone photo format explained
This page answers the questions people actually type after an iPhone photo refuses to open. It is about the format itself. If you simply want a JPG, the routes are in HEIC to JPG, so I will not repeat them here.
Status first: ConvertMango's HEIC tool is planned but not available, and our live tools cannot read HEIC files. Nothing below assumes otherwise.
What does HEIC stand for?
The sources I checked do not spell out the letters of HEIC. The Library of Congress page describes the parent standard instead: HEIF, the High Efficiency Image File Format. I will therefore treat "HEIC" as a file-type name rather than lean on an expansion I could not confirm.
The Library of Congress says HEIF is defined by ISO/IEC 23008-12 (also called MPEG-H Part 12) and was first published by ISO in 2017. HEIC is the variant in which the images are coded with HEVC, the video codec also known as H.265.
Is HEIC the same thing as HEIF?
No, and the difference explains a lot of confusion. HEIF is a container. The Library of Congress describes it as a container for images rather than an encoder in its own right, and says it can hold HEVC, AVC (H.264) and JPEG image data. The file extensions it lists are:
| Extension | What it means |
|---|---|
| .heif / .heifs | Generic HEIF, for single images and for image sequences |
| .heic / .heics | HEIF holding HEVC-coded items, for single images and sequences |
| .hif | Used by Canon; added to the standard in a 2020 corrigendum |
The same page notes that it is unclear how much a Canon .hif file's encoding differs from Apple's HEIC. So "HEIC" in everyday talk means the Apple-style file, but a camera may write something similar under another name.
Why did Apple choose it?
Apple's own support page gives the reason in a sentence: HEIF and HEVC offer better compression than JPEG and H.264, so photos take less space on the device and in iCloud Photos, with, in Apple's words, the same visual quality. That is Apple's claim, and the page gives no file-size figures, so I will not invent one. Whether you save a lot or a little depends on the photo.
The Library of Congress records that Apple announced HEIF adoption at WWDC 2017, with capture support arriving on iOS 11 phones and file support in macOS High Sierra. Other adopters it lists include Qualcomm chips from 2018, the Samsung Galaxy S10 in 2019 and Canon cameras from 2020. So HEIC is not an Apple-only curiosity, even though iPhone photos are where most people meet it.
How is it different from a JPEG file?
Three differences matter in practice.
- It is a container with more inside. A HEIF file can hold any number of still image items, plus image sequences, tiles and metadata such as Exif and XMP. A JPEG is one flat picture.
- It has a place for transparency and depth. The Library of Congress says auxiliary images, such as alpha (transparency) or depth data, have a defined place in the format. Plain JPEG has no alpha channel, as MDN states.
- It is designed for higher bit depth. The container is built for large dimensions and high bit depth, supports both lossy and lossless storage, and can carry ICC colour profiles.
None of this means your everyday iPhone photo uses every feature. It means the format has the room, which is why a simple viewer built for JPEG cannot just be pointed at it.
Which devices take HEIC photos?
Apple lists iPhone 7 and 7 Plus or later, several iPad models and Apple Vision Pro as able to capture HEIF and HEVC media. Other devices can view, edit and duplicate it "with limitations". The page also says that on a Mac running macOS Tahoe 26 or later, screenshots are saved as HEIF when the Screenshot app's capture format is set to HDR, which is a case where you might get one without ever using a camera.
Capture is a choice. Under Settings, Camera, Formats, "Most Compatible" saves photos as JPEG and videos as H.264. The option appears only on devices that can capture the newer formats.
Why will it not open on my computer or website?
The simplest explanation is support. MDN's guide to the image types commonly used on the web lists APNG, AVIF, GIF, JPEG, JPEG XL, PNG, SVG and WebP, and HEIC is not among them. A web form that checks for those types will have no reason to accept an HEIC file.
For desktop software the picture is less clear. The Library of Congress raises patent licensing for the HEVC and AVC encodings as a consideration and suspects it affects Windows and Photoshop support. That is a suspicion on its page, not a confirmed explanation, and I could not find an official statement of which software versions do or do not open HEIC, so I will not list them. If a file will not open, the format is one candidate cause; an incomplete transfer is another, so keep the original untouched while you investigate.
Apple also tries to prevent the problem at the sharing stage. Its page says that via AirDrop, Messages or email, media may be shared in a more compatible format such as JPEG when the recipient's device does not support HEIF. Importing by cable into Photos, Image Capture or a PC may likewise convert to JPEG, unless Keep Originals is turned on. The word is "may", so check what actually arrived.
What about quality when I convert it?
Converting HEIC to JPEG means going from one lossy encoding to another, so it is a fresh round of lossy compression. How visible that is depends on the photo and the export setting; I have not measured it and will not quote a percentage. The sensible habit is the same as for any master file: keep the original HEIC and treat the JPEG as the copy you share. What is JPEG? explains how that lossy step works.
What can ConvertMango do today?
Our live image tools work on JPG, PNG and WebP, one image at a time, up to 50 MB and 40 megapixels, in your browser, with file contents not uploaded to our conversion service. If your photos are already JPG or PNG, PNG to JPG and JPG to PNG are available. Moving between the older formats is covered in how to convert PNG to JPG.
Where HEIC fits among newer formats
HEIC is one of several formats that apply video-codec technology to still pictures. AVIF does the same with the AV1 codec, which MDN lists as a web-supported format; read what is AVIF for that comparison. For choosing a format by destination, best image format for websites, email, print and social is the wider guide.
Convert it now
Use our PNG to JPG tool. It runs in your browser, so the contents of your file are not uploaded to our conversion service. You get five free conversions a day without signing up. The allowance resets at 00:00 UTC.
Frequently asked questions
Is HEIC the same as HEIF?
Not quite. HEIF is the container standard, ISO/IEC 23008-12. HEIC is the name used for a HEIF file whose images are coded with HEVC, and it is the form Apple introduced.
Which iPhones take HEIC photos?
Apple lists iPhone 7 and 7 Plus or later as able to capture HEIF and HEVC media. You can switch to JPEG under Settings, Camera, Formats, Most Compatible.
Can ConvertMango open HEIC files?
No. Our HEIC tool is planned but not available, and the live image tools do not read HEIC. They handle JPG, PNG and WebP.
Related tools
More guides
Sources
- Library of Congress, 'HEIF, High Efficiency Image File Format', https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/formats/fdd/fdd000525.shtml
- Apple Support (UK), 'Using HEIF or HEVC media on Apple devices', https://support.apple.com/en-gb/116944
- MDN Web Docs, 'Image file type and format guide', https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Media/Guides/Formats/Image_types