Why people convert HEIC here
Since iOS 11 the Camera app writes HEIC to save space. That is fine inside Photos. It breaks the moment the file leaves Apple’s stack. A Windows PC without the HEVC extension shows a blank icon. Some desktop WhatsApp builds say the attachment is unsupported. Print kiosks and older CMS fields only whitelist JPG or PNG. Renaming .heic to .jpg does nothing — the bitstream is still HEVC.
Most “free converters” fix that by taking the bytes onto a server. Family photos, workplace shots, and documents do not belong there. HEIC Local decodes in this tab. After the page and decoder have loaded, the photo does not need a second trip across the network to become a JPEG.
Switching iPhone Camera to “Most Compatible” only helps future shots and wastes space going forward. It does not rewrite last year’s roll. This page is for the files you already have, and for one-off shares, without changing the system default.
How the converter works
You pick one still or a batch. Safari on iPhone can often decode HEIC natively. If it cannot, a WebAssembly decoder runs on the same device. Pixels are then encoded as JPEG (default quality 90) or PNG. You download one file or a ZIP. Soft guards sit around 40 MB per photo, 50 files, and 200 MB per batch so a phone tab survives the job. Those numbers are memory limits, not a paid quota.
Live Photo motion is not exported. You get the still. Portrait depth maps are not a separate file. GPS and other EXIF fields are not the product — do not assume every tag survives every encoder path. If you must strip location before a public post, do that as a second step after you have the JPG.
What this site is not
It is not a cloud gallery. It is not an editor with filters. It is not a catalogue of every other file tool we ship. The job is narrow: HEIC still in, JPG or PNG out, in this tab. Guides on the same domain stay on that job — HEIC on Windows, HEIC in WhatsApp, the step-by-step, and the FAQ.
What stays in this document
The converter on this page is the product. The sentences under it exist so a reviewer and a first-time visitor can tell HEIC Local from a dropzone that ships the roll to a queue. After the HTML, CSS, and decoder have arrived, the File object you picked is read by this document. Native decode uses the OS. The fallback uses WASM in this tab. JPEG quality 90 is a default for sharing, not a watermark and not a daily cap. PNG is the lossless dump of the decoded frame when the next tool hates JPEG blocking.
We do not keep a gallery after you leave. We do not pair this hostname with an account to “sync conversions.” Optional Sign in in the header is a leftover scaffold and is not required for Convert. If you never tap it, nothing about the still changes. That is deliberate: a signup wall before a local decode is how thin converter sites fail both users and AdSense reviewers. Guides on this host stay on delivery of a still — iPhone Safari, Windows, WhatsApp — not a second product.
Soft guards around 40 MB per photo, 50 files, and 200 MB per batch are RAM limits, not a pricing tier. A 48 MP still on an old phone may fail the guard; use a laptop or export a smaller frame from Photos. We do not raise the ceiling by email. Compressing a JPEG you already have is a different hostname. This page only accepts a HEIC/HEIF still.
Limits you should know
- Stills only. A video renamed to .heic will fail on purpose.
- Burst or multi-image HEIF sequences may need the key still exported from Photos first.
- Keep the tab in the foreground on iPhone until the download starts. Backgrounded Safari can drop the decoder.
- Wide-gamut Display P3 shots can shift slightly when JPEG lands in sRGB. That is the JPEG path, not a server filter.
- First visit needs the network to load the page and decoder. Conversion itself does not upload the photo.