Why your iPhone photos are HEIC and not JPG
The iPhone has saved photos as HEIC by default since 2017 because it halves the file size. Here is why so much software still rejects it, how to switch the camera back to JPG, and why converting makes the file bigger.
Your iPhone is saving photos as HEIC because that is what it has done by default since iOS 11, released in 2017. Nothing is broken and nothing has changed on your phone. What has changed is that you have run into one of the many places that still will not accept the format.
What HEIC actually is
HEIC is a container holding an image compressed with HEVC, the same codec used for 4K video. It is simply a newer and better compressor than JPEG, which was finalised in 1992. In practice a HEIC photo is roughly half the size of the equivalent JPEG at similar quality, which is why Apple switched: the same phone storage holds about twice as many photos.
It also stores things JPEG cannot. A HEIC file can hold multiple images in one file, which is how Live Photos and burst shots are packaged, and it supports 10-bit colour where JPEG is limited to 8. None of that helps when a government upload form rejects it.
Why so much software still refuses it
Two reasons, and only one is technical. HEVC is covered by patents held by several licensing pools, so a company shipping a HEIC decoder may owe royalties in a way that a JPEG decoder never does. That has kept HEIC out of a lot of software that could otherwise support it. The other reason is simply inertia: a form built in 2015 accepts JPG and PNG, and nobody has revisited the list.
The practical result is that HEIC works beautifully inside Apple's own ecosystem and unevenly everywhere else. Windows 11 can display HEIC but needs a codec from the Microsoft Store to do it. Most web upload forms reject it. Many older Android phones cannot open one at all.
Stop your phone producing HEIC in the first place
Open Settings, then Camera, then Formats, and choose Most Compatible instead of High Efficiency. From that moment on the camera saves JPG. Two things worth knowing before you do it:
- It only affects photos taken after the change. Everything already in your library stays HEIC.
- Your photos will take up roughly twice the storage. On a 128 GB phone with a large library that is a real cost.
There is a second setting that catches people out. Under Settings, Photos, Transfer to Mac or PC, the option Automatic converts photos to JPG as they are copied off the phone, while Keep Originals hands over the HEIC untouched. If you have ever wondered why photos arrive as JPG on one computer and HEIC on another, this is usually why.
Converting the photos you already have
For files already on your phone or computer, converting is the answer. HEIC to JPG is the one almost everyone needs, since JPG is accepted essentially everywhere. Use HEIC to PNG instead if the photo is going to be edited further, because PNG is lossless and will not add another generation of JPEG artefacts. If several photos need to travel as one document, HEIC to PDF puts them into a single file.
Our converters decode the HEIC in the browser using a WebAssembly build of libheif, so the photo is never uploaded. The first conversion in a session takes around seven seconds while that decoder downloads and starts up; every one after that is immediate.
The result will probably be bigger, and that is correct
This surprises people enough that it is worth stating plainly: converting HEIC to JPG usually produces a larger file. In our own testing a 2.11 MB HEIC came out at 2.47 MB as a JPG. Nothing has gone wrong. HEIC is the better compressor, so storing the same picture as JPEG costs more bytes.
It matters when the conversion was prompted by an upload limit, because you can solve the format problem and still be over the weight limit afterwards. Convert first, then compress the JPG to whatever the form asks for, with something like compress image to 500 KB or 200 KB.
What you lose in the conversion
Being honest about this: HEIC to JPG is not free. Both formats are lossy, so decoding a HEIC and re-encoding it as JPEG puts the image through a second generation of compression. At high quality settings the difference is invisible on a normal photo, and it is very visible if you repeat it several times, so convert from the original rather than from a previous conversion.
You also lose the extras. A Live Photo becomes a single still. Depth information used for Portrait mode is discarded. 10-bit colour is reduced to 8-bit, which can show as slight banding in a smooth sky. For an upload form none of that matters. For an archive, keep the HEIC original and treat the JPG as a copy made for a specific purpose.
Which one should you keep?
Keep HEIC as your camera setting if storage matters and you mostly view photos on Apple devices. Switch to Most Compatible if you regularly send photos to Windows or Android users, upload to forms, or hand files to a print shop. Neither answer is wrong, and the conversion is quick enough that leaving the phone on High Efficiency and converting when needed is a perfectly reasonable third option.