How to convert HEIC to JPG
Drop in your photo, pick JPEG as the target format, and the converted file downloads a moment later. Nothing is uploaded to a server — the conversion, including decoding HEIC, happens inside your browser tab.
What HEIC actually is
HEIC (High Efficiency Image Container) is the photo format iPhones have saved to by default since iOS 11. It compresses better than JPEG at the same visual quality, which is why Apple switched — a HEIC photo is typically half the file size of an equivalent JPEG. The tradeoff is compatibility: HEIC is built on the same codec as HEVC video, and support for reading it directly is far from universal.
Why HEIC photos “won’t open” on Windows and Android
Windows Photos, older Android galleries, most web upload forms, and a large share of desktop image editors simply don’t know how to decode HEIC without an extra codec pack. That’s the moment someone AirDrops or emails a photo from an iPhone and it shows up as a broken thumbnail or an “unsupported file type” error. Converting to JPEG once, right after the photo leaves the phone, sidesteps the problem permanently — JPEG opens everywhere.
How the conversion works without an upload
Recent versions of Safari and iOS can decode HEIC natively through the same Canvas API this tool already uses for resizing, so on an iPhone or a Mac the conversion is closer to instant. On browsers that can’t decode HEIC on their own — most of Windows and Android — this tool falls back to libheif, an open-source decoder compiled to WebAssembly, downloaded only when a HEIC file is actually selected. Either path, the decoded image is then re-encoded to JPEG, PNG, or WebP using the browser’s own image encoder, and the result never touches a server.
Choosing a format and quality
JPEG is the safe default for photos — universally supported, and a quality setting around 85–90 keeps files small with no visible loss for most images. PNG is worth it only for screenshots, graphics with flat colors, or images that need transparency; it doesn’t compress photos well and produces much larger files. WebP sits between the two — smaller than JPEG at equal quality — but it’s not offered here in browsers (mainly Safari) that can’t actually save a WebP file; forcing it would silently produce the wrong format.
A useful side effect: metadata is gone
Because the image is decoded and redrawn rather than copied byte-for-byte, none of the original EXIF data — GPS location, camera model, capture time — survives the conversion. If you’re sharing a converted photo publicly, that’s one less thing to think about.