Open HEIC Files on Windows: View and Convert to JPG

You copy photos from an iPhone to a Windows laptop, double-click one, and Windows says it cannot open the file. Or a family member sends pictures and every one of them ends in .heic. Nothing is broken. The photos are fine, they are just saved in a format Windows does not handle out of the box.

Here is what HEIC is, how to view it on Windows, and how to turn it into ordinary JPG files that open everywhere.

What a HEIC file actually is

HEIC is Apple's name for images stored in the HEIF format, compressed with the HEVC codec, the same family of compression used for modern video. Apple made it the default camera format with iOS 11 in 2017. Since then, unless you change a setting, every photo taken on an iPhone is saved as HEIC.

Apple chose it because it produces smaller files than JPG at similar visual quality. It also supports features that JPG lacks, such as storing several images in one file, which Live Photos and burst shots rely on.

The catch is compatibility. Macs and iPhones read HEIC natively. Many other places do not: older Windows setups, some photo printing kiosks, online forms that only accept JPG or PNG, and plenty of older software.

Viewing HEIC on Windows

Windows 10 and 11 can show HEIC photos in the Photos app, but they need two extensions from the Microsoft Store:

• HEIF Image Extensions, which teaches Windows the container format.
• HEVC Video Extensions, which provides the codec that actually decodes the image.

On some computers the HEVC extension comes preinstalled by the manufacturer. On others it is offered in the Store as a paid download. Once both are installed, HEIC files get thumbnails in File Explorer and open in Photos like any other picture.

This solves viewing on your own machine. It does not help when you need to send the photos to someone else, upload them to a site that refuses HEIC, or put them into a document. For that you need JPG.

Converting HEIC to JPG in the browser

The simplest route is to convert the files once and stop worrying about it.

HEIC to JPG on DocJuno handles a whole batch at once:

• Open the tool and drop in all your .heic files.
• Leave the quality at the default, or raise it if you plan to print.
• Download the JPG files, one by one or together.

You do not need the Windows extensions for this, because the decoding happens in the browser itself. The photos also never leave your computer. That matters more than people think: holiday pictures, photos of your kids and screenshots of documents often carry location data and personal details.

A note on file size and quality

JPG files are usually somewhat larger than the HEIC originals at the same visual quality. That is expected, since HEIC compresses more efficiently. If you need small files, for example to email a batch, run the JPGs through Compress Image afterwards.

Converting does not improve a photo. It only changes the container. Converting the same file back and forth repeatedly is a bad idea, because JPG loses a little detail each time it is saved.

Converting hundreds of photos

After a holiday it is easy to end up with several hundred pictures. Because the conversion runs on your own computer, its speed depends on that computer. On an older laptop, work in batches of a few dozen rather than dropping everything in at once. It also makes it easier to check that nothing was skipped.

Putting iPhone photos into a PDF

A common reason to convert HEIC in the first place is paperwork. You photographed a receipt, an ID card or a filled-in form with your phone, and now an office wants it as a PDF.

Once you have JPG files, JPG to PDF puts them into a single document. You can set the order, choose a page size like A4, and get one file that is easy to attach. For forms with a size limit, compress the images before building the PDF rather than after, because it gives you more control over the result.

Stopping the problem at the source

If you regularly move photos to Windows, you can tell the iPhone to deal with it.

In Settings, Camera, Formats, choosing "Most Compatible" makes the camera save new photos as JPG instead of HEIC. The trade-off is that files take more space on the phone.

Before you change this, think about how you use the phone. If storage is tight and you mostly look at photos on the iPhone itself, HEIC is the better format to keep.

There is a second option many people miss. In Settings, Photos, under "Transfer to Mac or PC", the "Automatic" setting converts photos to a compatible format when you copy them over a cable. With that on, the iPhone keeps HEIC for storage but hands Windows a JPG. This only applies to cable transfers, not to photos sent through messaging apps or cloud services, which have their own behaviour.

Which approach to pick

• If you only look at photos on your own PC, install the two Microsoft extensions.
• If you share, print or upload photos, convert them to JPG.
• If you copy photos by cable often, turn on automatic transfer conversion on the iPhone.
• If you need a document, convert to JPG and then build a PDF.

For most people, converting the batch they actually need is the quickest fix. It works on any computer, including one where you cannot install software.