Someone with an iPhone sends you a photo, you open it on your laptop, and Windows tells you it cannot display the file. The extension is .heic. It is not broken; it is another format.
What HEIC is
Since 2017, with iOS 11, the iPhone saves photos as HEIC instead of JPG. The format stores the same image in about half the space, which for Apple means twice as many photos in the same memory. For everyone else it means a file not everyone can open.
Windows 10 and 11 display HEIC only with two extensions from the Microsoft Store, one of them paid. Many older Android phones do not open it at all. Websites that ask for a photo in a form usually accept JPG and PNG only.
Three fixes
1. Set the phone to save JPG
On the iPhone: Settings → Camera → Formats → "Most Compatible". From now on new photos are saved as JPG. They take more space, but they open anywhere. Photos already taken stay HEIC.
2. Let the phone convert on transfer
Also on the iPhone: Settings → Photos → "Transfer to Mac or PC" → "Automatic". When you copy photos to a computer over a cable, the phone converts them to JPG on the way. It does not help with photos sent by e-mail or messaging apps.
3. Convert the files you already have
For photos that have already reached you as HEIC, you can convert them to JPG without installing anything and without sending them to any server. We built a HEIC to JPG converter that works in the browser: drop the photos on the page, get the JPGs back, one by one or as a ZIP. You can shrink them for e-mail and choose the quality.
The files do not leave your computer. You can check: once the page has loaded, switch the internet off and keep converting.
A detail that matters: where the photo was taken
A phone photo carries, besides the image, data about it: the date, the phone model and, most of the time, the exact coordinates of where it was taken. When you forward the original file, you forward that data too.
The JPG you get from our converter is generated anew from the photo's pixels and inherits none of it. The photo looks the same; the address is no longer in it.
In short
- HEIC has been the default format for iPhone photos since 2017. Half the space, but it does not open everywhere.
- For future photos: Settings → Camera → Formats → Most Compatible.
- For existing photos: our converter, in the browser, no upload and no location data in the new file.