HEIC to JPEG

HEIC to JPEG converts Apple's High Efficiency Image Container format into JPEG or PNG using the heic2any library. heic2any is a JavaScript port of libheif compiled to WebAssembly; it decodes the HEVC-encoded image data inside an HEIC file (or HEIF, the open container format HEIC is based on) and re-encodes it through the browser's Canvas API into the format you choose.

HEIC was introduced in iOS 11 and is the default capture format on every iPhone since the iPhone 7. It typically produces files about half the size of JPEG at the same visual quality because it uses the modern HEVC codec instead of JPEG's older DCT-based compression. The trade-off is patent-encumbered codec support: Windows, Android, most web browsers, email clients, and image editors built before 2018 cannot open HEIC at all.

The library is dynamically imported (so the WASM bundle, which is around 2 MB, only loads when you actually drop a file in) and runs the decode on the main thread. For typical iPhone photos (12 MP, 2-3 MB on disk) conversion completes in under a second on a modern laptop. Live Photos arrive as a HEIC plus a separate MOV; only the still HEIC is converted, the motion track is discarded.

Output format choice matters. JPEG honours the quality slider (default 0.9 / 90 percent, which is visually identical to the source for almost every photo) and produces the smallest, most portable files. PNG is lossless but two to three times larger; pick it for screenshots, scanned documents, or when you need transparency, although iPhone HEIC photos rarely contain alpha.

Batch processing is supported up to a sensible cap. Files are decoded one at a time so the WebAssembly heap stays within Safari's tight per-tab memory limit (around 1 GB on iPhones), and outputs can be downloaded individually or packaged as a single ZIP. EXIF metadata — capture date, GPS, lens, exposure — is preserved when present in the source.

Everything happens client-side. The HEIC file is read into an ArrayBuffer, decoded by heic2any in your tab, painted into a Canvas, and exported via toBlob. No image bytes leave the browser, which is why the tool can advertise itself as private even for sensitive content like passport scans.

Compatibility caveat: very old browsers without WebAssembly cannot run heic2any, and Safari's HEIC decoder occasionally rejects malformed files written by third-party iOS apps. If a specific file errors out, opening it in Photos on a Mac and re-exporting almost always produces a clean version that converts cleanly here.