Guide
HEIC vs JPG: why your iPhone photos won't open
That .HEIC file isn't broken — it's just a newer format that a lot of software still can't read. Here's the whole story.
You email a photo from your iPhone, and the person on the other end can't open it. Or you plug your phone into a Windows PC and every picture ends in .HEIC — a format Paint, older Photoshop and half the web have never heard of. Nothing is wrong with your photos. Apple simply switched to a newer, more efficient format, and the rest of the world hasn't fully caught up. This guide explains why, and what to do about it.
What is HEIC?
HEIC is Apple's name for images stored in the HEIF container using HEVC compression. Since iOS 11 (2017), iPhones and iPads save photos this way by default. The big advantage is size: a HEIC photo is often about half the size of the same photo as a JPG, at equal or better quality. It can also store extras JPG can't — like the depth data behind Portrait mode and Live Photos.
So why won't it open?
Because support is uneven. Apple devices read HEIC natively; much of the rest of the software world reads it partially, or not at all.
| Where | HEIC support |
|---|---|
| iPhone, iPad, modern Mac | Full — opens everywhere |
| Windows 10/11 | Only after installing Apple's HEIF/HEVC codecs |
| Older photo editors | Often none |
| Many websites & upload forms | Rejected — they expect JPG or PNG |
| Android | Newer phones yes, older ones no |
That's the whole problem in one table: HEIC is great inside Apple's world and awkward the moment a file leaves it. JPG, by contrast, is 30 years old and opens literally everywhere.
The quick fix: convert HEIC to JPG
When you just need a photo that works — to attach, upload, or edit in an older app — convert it to JPG. The HEIC to JPG converter does this in your browser: drop the file in, get a standard JPG back, and nothing is ever uploaded to a server. That last point matters for personal photos — the conversion happens entirely on your own device.
The permanent fix: make your iPhone shoot JPG
If you're tired of converting, tell your iPhone to capture in the compatible format instead:
- Open Settings → Camera → Formats.
- Choose Most Compatible. New photos are saved as JPG.
- Prefer to keep shooting HEIC but share JPG? Leave it on High Efficiency and, under Settings → Photos, set Transfer to Mac or PC to Automatic — it converts on the way out.
"Most Compatible" gives you bigger files and loses the space savings, so it's a trade-off — but if compatibility headaches outweigh storage for you, it's the cleaner long-term answer.
Which should you keep?
For archiving your own library on Apple devices, HEIC is genuinely better — smaller files, same quality. For anything you send, upload or edit elsewhere, convert to JPG first. In other words: store HEIC, share JPG. If your photos are also destined for a website, it's worth reading how the formats compare more broadly in our JPG vs PNG vs WebP vs AVIF guide, and shrinking them with the image compressor before you upload.