How to convert HEIC to JPG — free, on Windows, without uploading your photos
Updated
HEIC is the space-saving photo format iPhones use by default, and plenty of Windows apps and websites still choke on it. This tool decodes .heic files to standard JPG (or PNG) entirely in your browser — no upload, no signup, and it batch-converts a whole camera roll into a single zip.
Why your iPhone photos are HEIC — and why that's a problem elsewhere
Since iOS 11, iPhones and iPads have saved photos as HEIC (High Efficiency Image Container) by default. The appeal is real: HEIC stores an image at roughly half the file size of a JPG at comparable quality, so you fit twice as many photos on the same phone. On Apple devices everything just works, so most people never notice the format at all.
The friction starts the moment a photo leaves the Apple ecosystem. You email a picture to a colleague on Windows and they can't open it. You try to upload it to a job application, an insurance claim, or an older web form, and it's rejected. A print shop's kiosk doesn't recognise it. Some Windows 10/11 machines can open HEIC only after buying a codec from the Microsoft Store. JPG has none of these problems — it's understood by essentially every device, app, and website made in the last thirty years — which is exactly why converting is so often the fastest fix.
Convert HEIC to JPG in three steps
- Drop your .heic files into the box at the top (or click to browse). Add as many as you want — a single holiday, a whole camera roll, whatever you've got.
- Choose your output. JPG is the right answer for almost everyone; pick PNG only if you need lossless quality. For JPG you can trade a little quality for smaller files.
- Click Convert. One photo downloads straight as a JPG; several are packaged into a single
.zipso you get everything in one click.
No account, no watermark stamped across your photos, no "3 free conversions then pay." The decoding happens on your own machine, so the only limit is your device's memory.
Why converting locally matters for photos
Photos are personal in a way spreadsheets aren't. A camera roll can hold pictures of your kids, your home, documents you photographed, a passport, a whiteboard from work. The usual "free HEIC converter" online asks you to upload every one of those to a server you know nothing about — and image files carry EXIF metadata including the GPS coordinates of where each shot was taken.
This tool never uploads anything. Your files are decoded in your browser's memory by a WebAssembly build of the open-source libheif library, handed back to you as downloads, and gone the moment you close the tab. There is no server-side copy because there is no server in the loop. The only thing recorded is an anonymous counter noting the tool ran — the text "heic-to-jpg", never anything from or about your photos.
Other ways to open HEIC on Windows (and their trade-offs)
| Method | Cost | Upload? | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| This tool | Free | No — local | Batch, JPG or PNG, works on any OS |
| Windows HEIF codec | Paid (Microsoft Store) | No | Lets Photos view HEIC; doesn't batch-export to JPG |
| iPhone setting change | Free | No | Settings → Camera → Formats → "Most Compatible" makes future photos JPG; doesn't fix existing ones |
| Online converter sites | "Free" with limits | Yes, to unknown servers | Privacy and GPS-metadata concerns |
A useful tip for the future: on the iPhone, Settings → Camera → Formats → Most Compatible switches the camera to JPG going forward, so you stop generating HEIC files at all. It won't convert the photos you already have — that's what this page is for.