HEIC on iPhone: how to get JPG instead

Since iOS 11 the iPhone camera has two capture formats, found under Settings › Camera › Formats:

• High Efficiency: photos in HEIF (files ending .HEIC) and videos in HEVC (H.265). This is the default.
• Most Compatible: photos in JPEG and videos in H.264, the formats every device has understood for decades.

High Efficiency stores a photo in roughly half the space of a JPEG at similar visible quality, and it can hold extras that JPEG cannot, such as depth data for Portrait mode and the wider colour range newer iPhones capture. The cost is compatibility: many Windows PCs, websites, upload forms and older Android apps cannot open HEIC.

1. Open Settings and tap Camera.
2. Tap Formats.
3. Under Camera Capture, choose Most Compatible.

From now on new photos are JPG and new videos are H.264 .MOV files. Photos you already took stay HEIC; the setting does not convert your library.

Things to weigh before switching:

• Photos take about twice the storage, which adds up in iCloud.
• Some video modes need High Efficiency. On many models, recording 4K at 60 fps or slow motion at 240 fps is only offered with High Efficiency, and newer camera features may be too.
• To go back, choose High Efficiency in the same place.

In most everyday sharing, the iPhone already converts for you. When you send a photo through Mail, Messages to a non-Apple phone, or many apps, iOS hands over a JPG if the receiver might not cope with HEIC.

For copying photos to a computer over a USB cable there is a dedicated setting:

1. Open Settings. On iOS 18 and later tap Apps › Photos; on earlier versions tap Photos.
2. Scroll to Transfer to Mac or PC.
3. Choose Automatic to convert photos and videos to compatible formats during the transfer, or Keep Originals to copy the HEIC files as they are.

With Automatic, a Windows PC importing photos gets JPG files while your phone keeps the smaller HEIC originals. This is usually the best of both.

If a website or form refuses a HEIC photo, you can convert it without a computer.

Copy and paste into Files. In the Photos app, select one or more photos, tap the Share button and choose Copy. Open the Files app, go to a folder (On My iPhone works), touch and hold an empty spot and tap Paste. On current iOS versions the pasted pictures are usually saved as JPG, which you can check in the file name. It is free and built in, though the behaviour has changed between iOS releases, so check the extension before relying on it.

Shortcuts. The Shortcuts app has a Convert Image action that turns images into JPEG or PNG. A three-step shortcut (select photos, convert image to JPEG, save file) gives you a reusable converter in the share sheet.

In Safari with KiteConvert. Open the HEIC to JPG converter in Safari, tap Choose files, then Photo Library, and pick the photos. They are converted on the phone itself, nothing is uploaded. With two or more results you can tap Save to Photos / Share to put the JPGs straight back into your library, or download a ZIP into Files.

When you pick a photo in a website’s upload button, Safari often converts it to JPG on the fly before the site sees it. Whether it does depends on which formats the website says it accepts. That is why the same HEIC photo uploads fine to one site and is rejected by another.

Our converter asks for HEIC on purpose, so it receives the original file. If iOS still hands it a JPG, the converter notices from the file contents and says so: the photo is already converted and you can use it as it is.

A Live Photo is two files that belong together: a still picture (.HEIC or .JPG) and a three-second video (.MOV). Most apps show them as one item.

When you convert a Live Photo to JPG, you get the still picture. The motion part is a separate video and is not part of the JPG. If you want the motion as something shareable, open the Live Photo in Photos and look in its options (the Live button or the menu) for the effects such as Loop and Bounce, or save it as a video; then convert that video to a GIF or MP4.

If you never use the motion, turning Live off in the Camera app (the round icon at the top) saves space and avoids confusion on PCs, where the .MOV half can appear as a separate file.

The same Formats setting controls video. High Efficiency records HEVC video in .MOV files. Most phones, Macs and modern PCs play them, but some older computers, TVs and editing apps do not. Our MOV to MP4 converter copies the video into an MP4 file in seconds without losing quality, and can re-encode it to H.264 when an older device needs that.

• Keep High Efficiency for the camera; it saves a lot of storage.
• Set Transfer to Mac or PC to Automatic if you copy photos to a Windows PC with a cable.
• For the occasional form or website that refuses HEIC, convert just those photos on the phone.
• Switch to Most Compatible only if almost everything you shoot goes straight to devices or services that cannot read HEIC.