HEIC to JPG Converter: Convert iPhone Photos Online

What this converter does

This tool turns the HEIC photos an iPhone produces into ordinary JPGs, entirely inside your browser. It decodes each HEIC with a WebAssembly build of libheif, then re-saves the pixels as JPEG at the quality you choose. The original pixel dimensions are preserved, so a 12-megapixel photo comes out as a 12-megapixel JPG.

Drop in one photo and it downloads as a JPG the moment it is ready. Drop in a folder full and they are converted one after another, then offered as a single ZIP, with individual downloads still listed underneath. Nothing is uploaded at any point.

Why HEIC exists, and why it causes trouble

Apple switched the iPhone camera to HEIC with iOS 11 in 2017. The reasoning was sound: HEIC stores a photo in roughly half the space of a comparable JPEG, which meant thousands more pictures on the same phone. It also carries things JPEG cannot, including 10-bit colour, transparency, depth maps and several images in one file, which is how Live Photos and bursts work.

The problem is the compression underneath. HEIC packs its pixels using HEVC, the video codec also known as H.265, and HEVC carries patent licensing. Software makers must pay to ship a decoder, so many simply did not. That single decision explains every symptom you have run into: Windows asking for an extension from the Microsoft Store, a job portal refusing your photo, a website showing a broken image, an Android phone unable to preview a file a friend sent. JPEG has none of those restrictions, which is why converting solves the problem everywhere at once instead of one app at a time.

What the quality presets actually cost

Most converters describe quality in adjectives. These three presets were measured instead. A real HEIC was converted at each setting and the result compared against the decoded original, pixel by pixel, as a mean absolute error on a 0 to 255 scale per colour channel:

• Maximum gives an error of about 0.3, which is effectively nothing, in exchange for the largest file.
• High, the default, sits near 2.6 while producing a file roughly a quarter of the size of Maximum.
• Balanced reaches about 2.9 and shrinks the file further, which suits email attachments and upload forms with size caps.

For context, a difference of 2 or 3 units on a single channel is not something the eye resolves in a photograph at normal viewing size. It becomes relevant only if you intend to edit and re-save the image repeatedly, where small losses accumulate. In that case use Maximum, or keep the HEIC as your master copy and treat the JPG as a distribution format.

Why in-browser conversion matters for photos

Plenty of HEIC converters work by uploading your file to a server, converting it there, and handing back a download link. That is a real privacy decision, not a technical detail. Personal photos carry faces, children, documents, homes and location data in their metadata, and an upload means handing all of it to a company whose retention policy you have not read.

Because the decoder here is compiled to WebAssembly, no upload is needed. The work happens on your own device, which is slower than a server with many cores but keeps the photos where they already are. A useful way to confirm it for yourself: convert a batch, then disconnect from the internet and convert another. It still works.

Related tools

Once your photos are JPGs, you may want to make them smaller or change their shape. The image compressor reduces file size further with a visible quality control, and the image resizer changes pixel dimensions for upload limits that cap width and height rather than bytes. If you are sending photos onward and would rather not include the location and device details an iPhone records, the bulk metadata remover strips EXIF from a whole batch.