How to open and convert iPhone HEIC photos on Windows

Updated: 2026-10-14

You copy photos from an iPhone to a PC, and they're .heic files that won't open or upload. Here's what HEIC is and three ways to deal with it.

What is HEIC?

Since iOS 11, iPhones save photos as HEIC (High Efficiency Image Container) by default. A HEIC photo looks the same as a JPG but takes about half the space. The catch is support: older Windows versions, many websites, upload forms and office software still expect JPG or PNG.

Option 1: open them in Windows

On recent versions of Windows 11, HEIC photos open in the Photos app without installing anything. On Windows 10 and earlier versions of Windows 11, Photos needs extensions from the Microsoft Store: HEIF Image Extensions, and in many cases HEVC Video Extensions, which Microsoft charges a small fee for.

Being able to view the photos doesn't help when a website or form only accepts JPG. For that you need to convert them.

Option 2: convert them to JPG in your browser

Open HEIC to JPG and drop the .heic photos on the page. You can select many at once.
Choose JPG or PNG.
Click Convert and download the photo, or a ZIP of all of them.

Portrait photos stay upright, and the photos aren't uploaded anywhere, which matters for personal pictures. To put several photos into one document, for example for a visa application, use JPG to PDF next.

Option 3: make the iPhone save JPGs

For new photos: open Settings › Camera › Formats and choose Most Compatible. New photos are saved as JPG (they take more space).
When copying to a computer: open Settings › Photos, and under Transfer to Mac or PC choose Automatic. The iPhone then converts photos to JPG while copying them over a cable.

Keeping High Efficiency on and converting only when you need to saves a lot of storage on the phone.