iphone photos. universal format.

convert HEIC/HEIF photos from your iPhone to universal JPG format. 100% client-side — your images never leave your browser.

drop HEIC/HEIF files here

or click to browse — up to 10 files

choose files

.heic, .heif

your images never leave your browser

What this tool does

Drop in HEIC files from your iPhone (or any HEIC source) and download them as JPGs that any platform can read. Conversion runs locally — your photos never leave your machine.

Why HEIC exists

HEIC is Apple's container for High Efficiency Image Coding (HEIC), itself a profile of the HEIF standard. It replaced JPEG as the iPhone default in 2017 with iOS 11. The reason is technical: HEIC files are typically 30-50% smaller than the JPEG of the same scene at the same visual quality, because the underlying codec (HEVC, the same one used by modern streaming video) compresses much more efficiently than JPEG's 1992-vintage algorithms.

For Apple's ecosystem, HEIC is invisible — every Apple device decodes and re-encodes it natively. The friction starts when the file leaves that ecosystem.

Why so many destinations cannot read HEIC

Despite being five years old in 2026, HEIC support is spotty outside Apple:

  • Most Windows builds require an extension install before File Explorer can render HEIC thumbnails or open the files in Photos.
  • Many web platforms reject HEIC uploads outright. Some accept the upload but cannot generate thumbnails server-side, leaving you with broken-image icons.
  • Email clientsare inconsistent. The same HEIC attachment might display in Gmail's web client and not in Outlook on Windows.
  • Older photo printing kiosks and apps frequently choke on HEIC, leaving the customer to figure out conversion at the worst possible moment.

The reliable answer remains: convert to JPG before uploading anywhere you do not control. The size penalty is real (a 4MB HEIC becomes a ~8MB JPG of comparable quality) but compatibility is universal.

How the conversion works in your browser

The conversion uses heic2any, a JavaScript library that bundles a WebAssembly build of libheif. Your file gets decoded entirely in the tab — pixels never round-trip through a server. The decoded pixel data is then re-encoded as JPG using the browser's built-in canvas encoder.

Two practical consequences:

  • Privacy.The same architectural guarantee that applies to the rest of Persimmon's tools applies here. Your photos do not leave your device.
  • Cold-start cost. The WebAssembly module is a few megabytes and loads on the first conversion of a session. Subsequent conversions are fast.

If you have a folder full of HEICs

Drop them all in at once. Conversion is sequential but each file is independent, so the wait scales linearly with the count and the typical phone-camera HEIC takes about a second per file on a modern laptop. A folder of 100 photos completes in a couple of minutes.

The Live Photo case

iPhones save Live Photos as a paired HEIC + MOV. The HEIC is the still frame; the MOV is the short video. This tool converts the HEIC half — the MOV stays as a separate file. If you want to extract a different frame from the Live Photo than the one Apple chose, that is a different operation and not what this tool does.

If you want to keep the small file size

If your destination supports modern formats, WebP gives you most of HEIC's size advantage with much wider compatibility. Use the image converter with WebP as the target instead of JPG. Browser support for WebP is universal in 2026.

What this tool does

Drop in HEIC files from your iPhone (or any HEIC source) and download them as JPGs that any platform can read. Conversion runs locally — your photos never leave your machine.

Why HEIC exists

HEIC is Apple's container for High Efficiency Image Coding (HEIC), itself a profile of the HEIF standard. It replaced JPEG as the iPhone default in 2017 with iOS 11. The reason is technical: HEIC files are typically 30-50% smaller than the JPEG of the same scene at the same visual quality, because the underlying codec (HEVC, the same one used by modern streaming video) compresses much more efficiently than JPEG's 1992-vintage algorithms.

For Apple's ecosystem, HEIC is invisible — every Apple device decodes and re-encodes it natively. The friction starts when the file leaves that ecosystem.

Why so many destinations cannot read HEIC

Despite being five years old in 2026, HEIC support is spotty outside Apple:

  • Most Windows builds require an extension install before File Explorer can render HEIC thumbnails or open the files in Photos.
  • Many web platforms reject HEIC uploads outright. Some accept the upload but cannot generate thumbnails server-side, leaving you with broken-image icons.
  • Email clientsare inconsistent. The same HEIC attachment might display in Gmail's web client and not in Outlook on Windows.
  • Older photo printing kiosks and apps frequently choke on HEIC, leaving the customer to figure out conversion at the worst possible moment.

The reliable answer remains: convert to JPG before uploading anywhere you do not control. The size penalty is real (a 4MB HEIC becomes a ~8MB JPG of comparable quality) but compatibility is universal.

How the conversion works in your browser

The conversion uses heic2any, a JavaScript library that bundles a WebAssembly build of libheif. Your file gets decoded entirely in the tab — pixels never round-trip through a server. The decoded pixel data is then re-encoded as JPG using the browser's built-in canvas encoder.

Two practical consequences:

  • Privacy.The same architectural guarantee that applies to the rest of Persimmon's tools applies here. Your photos do not leave your device.
  • Cold-start cost. The WebAssembly module is a few megabytes and loads on the first conversion of a session. Subsequent conversions are fast.

If you have a folder full of HEICs

Drop them all in at once. Conversion is sequential but each file is independent, so the wait scales linearly with the count and the typical phone-camera HEIC takes about a second per file on a modern laptop. A folder of 100 photos completes in a couple of minutes.

The Live Photo case

iPhones save Live Photos as a paired HEIC + MOV. The HEIC is the still frame; the MOV is the short video. This tool converts the HEIC half — the MOV stays as a separate file. If you want to extract a different frame from the Live Photo than the one Apple chose, that is a different operation and not what this tool does.

If you want to keep the small file size

If your destination supports modern formats, WebP gives you most of HEIC's size advantage with much wider compatibility. Use the image converter with WebP as the target instead of JPG. Browser support for WebP is universal in 2026.

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