How to Convert HEIC to JPG on Any Device (iPhone, Windows, Mac, Android)

Since iOS 11 (2017), iPhones save photos as HEIC — a format that stores the same image at roughly half the size of JPG. Storage-efficient, but endlessly annoying: Windows apps, websites, printers, and government portals still routinely reject it. Here's how to convert HEIC to JPG on every device, plus how to stop the problem at the source.

The fastest method on any device: browser conversion

Open our free HEIC to JPG converter in any browser — phone or computer — drop your HEIC files, and download JPGs seconds later. The conversion runs locally via a WebAssembly HEIC decoder, so photos never upload anywhere. No app install, no account, no file limit. This works identically on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and the iPhone itself.

On iPhone: three built-in tricks

1. Stop shooting HEIC entirely: Settings → Camera → Formats → Most Compatible. New photos save as JPG from then on (files will be ~2× larger).
2. Auto-convert on transfer: Settings → Photos → Transfer to Mac or PC → Automatic. Photos convert to JPG when moved via USB.
3. The copy-paste trick: copying a photo in the Photos app and pasting into Files (or a note/email) converts it to JPG on the spot — handy for one-offs.

On Windows 10/11

Windows can open HEIC only after installing the HEIF Image Extensions from the Microsoft Store (the HEVC video extension it pushes alongside sometimes costs $0.99). Even then, many apps still can't handle HEIC. Practical route: convert with the browser tool above, or if you have hundreds of files, select them in Photos and use Export. For batches of 20 at a time, our converter accepts multiple files at once.

On Mac

Macs handle HEIC natively. To convert: open the photo in Preview → File → Export → Format: JPEG. For batches, select many files in Finder, right-click → Quick Actions → Convert Image (built into macOS Monterey and later) — choose JPEG and it converts in place.

On Android

Newer Android phones (Samsung, Pixel) also shoot HEIC if enabled, and mostly display it fine. To convert received HEIC files, Google Photos opens them and "Save as copy" produces JPG — or use the browser converter, which works in Chrome for Android exactly as on desktop.

Quality: what actually happens when you convert

Both HEIC and JPG are lossy formats, so conversion re-encodes the image with a tiny generational loss — invisible at quality 90, which is what our converter uses. Expect the JPG file to be 30–80% larger than the HEIC, because JPG's 1992-era compression simply can't match HEVC efficiency. That's the trade: universal compatibility costs storage.

Bonus: batch workflows

Converting a whole trip's photos? Convert 20 at a time in the browser tool, then run the results through the bulk image resizer if you also need them smaller for sharing, or the image compressor to trim megabytes before emailing. If the destination is a document submission, go straight to JPG to PDF.