HEIC vs JPEG: what is the difference?

If you have ever sent an iPhone photo to someone and heard "it will not open", or been told that a website "does not accept this file type", you have met HEIC. This guide explains what it is, how it differs from JPEG, which devices and programs can open it, and what to do when you need a JPEG.

What HEIC is

HEIC is a file type for photos. It is a variant of HEIF, the High Efficiency Image File Format, and it stores the picture using HEVC (also called H.265), the same family of compression used for video. Apple made it the default photo format for iPhones and iPads that support it, and the camera setting is called High Efficiency. Apple describes the format and its settings in its guide to HEIF and HEVC media.

JPEG is the format almost everyone knows. It has been the standard for photos since the early 1990s, and every phone, computer, browser, printer and website understands it.

The differences that matter

The size advantage is the whole reason HEIC exists: a phone that saves HEIC can hold more photos in the same storage. How much smaller depends on the picture, so treat any single number you read, "half the size" for instance, as a rough guide.

Where HEIC opens, and where it does not

• iPhone, iPad and Mac: everywhere. Preview and Photos open HEIC, and Photos can export JPEG.
• Android: devices running Android 10 or later support the HEIC format, according to the Android platform documentation, but individual apps vary.
• Windows: newer versions of Windows 11 can open HEIC in the Photos app. Older ones need the HEIF Image Extensions and HEVC Video Extensions from the Microsoft Store, and the HEVC one has been a paid add-on in some regions. Many programs still show nothing at all.
• Browsers: Safari opens HEIC. Chrome, Firefox and Edge do not, so a HEIC file will not display on a web page there.
• Websites and uploads: job portals, government forms, shops and marketplaces often accept only JPG and PNG. Some convert HEIC for you, and some just refuse it.

How to get JPEG instead

Stop making HEIC

On the iPhone, open Settings → Camera → Formats and choose Most Compatible. From then on the camera saves JPEG. Photos take more space, and photos you took earlier stay HEIC.

Convert when you transfer

In Settings → Photos, the Transfer to Mac or PC setting has two choices. Automatic converts photos to a compatible format such as JPEG when you import them to a computer, and Keep Originals leaves them as HEIC. Apple's page above covers it.

Convert a pile of files

When you already have HEIC files, use our HEIC to JPG converter. Drop them on the page and download JPG files, one by one or as a ZIP. On a Mac you can also open a photo in Preview and use File → Export.

What you lose when you convert

• A little quality. JPEG is lossy too, so a conversion compresses the picture once more. A high setting, such as quality 92 or above, keeps the difference hard to see.
• Bigger files. The JPEG is usually larger than the HEIC it came from.
• Extras. The video part of a Live Photo, depth data and extra images in the file are not carried into a JPG.
• Metadata, depending on the tool. Some converters keep the date, camera details and GPS location, and some, including ours, do not. Leaving them out protects privacy when you share the file, and it means photo libraries that sort by the date inside the file will not know when the picture was taken. Our EXIF guide explains what is stored in a photo, and how to remove location data covers the privacy side.

Which should you use?

• Keep HEIC while your photos live on Apple devices and in iCloud, and you want the storage savings.
• Use JPEG when you send photos to people on other systems, upload them to websites, print them, or prepare them for software that may not read HEIC.
• Training sets and datasets. Most image-training tools expect JPG or PNG, so convert HEIC photos first. See our guides on preparing an image dataset and on image size and count for LoRA training, and use the image resizer to bring the pictures to one size.