HEIC or JPG
HEIC is what an iPhone has been saving photos as since 2017. The file is about half the weight of a JPG at the same quality, but outside Apple's own kit plenty of things will not read it.
| HEIC | JPG | |
|---|---|---|
| Arrived | 2017, with iOS 11 | 1992 |
| Weight per shot | about half | baseline |
| Transparency | yes | no |
| Colour depth | 10-bit, HDR available | 8-bit |
| Windows | needs extra extensions | opens straight away |
| Sites and services | rarely accepted | accepted everywhere |
Where HEIC comes from
From iOS 11 on, the iPhone shoots in “High Efficiency” by default. Inside such a file the frame is compressed with the HEVC video codec, also known as H.265; the container is called HEIF and the extension is .heic.
The saving is real: a shot that would take 4 MB as JPG sits at around two as HEIC. On a phone with no space left, that is worth having.
Why Windows will not open it
It is the codec. Displaying HEIC needs an HEVC decoder, and that one is licensed: Microsoft moved it into a separate Store extension and charges for the video part.
Recent Windows 11 handles some of these files on its own, but on someone else's machine or a work laptop do not count on it. Upload forms mostly just refuse HEIC outright.
How to shoot JPG instead
On the iPhone: Settings → Camera → Formats → “Most Compatible”. From then on the camera writes ordinary JPGs.
Your shots roughly double in size, and all the converting goes away. If you are forever moving photos onto other people's computers, this is the simplest way out.
What to do with what you already shot
The quickest route is the iPhone itself. Send a photo by mail, by messenger or over AirDrop to a non-Apple device and iOS usually converts it to JPG on the way out. Share → Options → “Most Compatible” does the same thing deliberately.
Through a computer: in Photos on a Mac, export and choose JPEG; on Windows, the Photos app will do it if the extensions are installed after all.
If there are a lot of shots, or no iPhone at hand, convert them right here: the HEIC to JPG tool runs in your browser and nothing is uploaded.