How to Open HEIC Files on Windows (and Turn Them Into JPG)

You copied photos off an iPhone, double-clicked one on your Windows PC, and got an error or a blank Photos window. The files end in .heic, and Windows doesn't know what to do with them.

The short answer: convert them to JPG. You can do that in a browser in about a minute, without installing anything. If you deal with iPhone photos every week, there are two longer-term fixes further down.

Why your iPhone saves photos as HEIC

Since iOS 11, iPhones save photos in HEIC (High Efficiency Image Container) by default. Apple chose it because it stores a photo in roughly half the space of a JPG at similar quality. On a 128 GB phone that adds up to thousands of extra photos.

The catch is support. Apple's own devices open HEIC without thinking about it. Windows, many Android apps, older versions of Photoshop, most website upload forms and plenty of print shops do not. So the file is fine; the problem is that half the world can't read it.

Option 1: Convert HEIC to JPG in your browser

This is the quickest fix and works on any Windows version.

1. Open the HEIC to JPG converter.
2. Drag your HEIC files onto the page, or click Choose files. You can add a whole folder's worth at once.
3. Leave the quality at the default (88%) unless you need smaller files.
4. Click Convert to JPG, then download each file or grab them all as one ZIP.

The conversion runs on your own computer. The photos aren't uploaded anywhere, which matters if they're of your kids, your passport or a client's site.

One thing to know: the JPG is a fresh file, so the original EXIF data (camera model, date taken, GPS location) isn't copied across. For sharing that's usually a bonus, because it strips your location too. If you need the capture date kept for a photo library, hang on to the HEIC originals.

If you want lossless files for editing, use HEIC to PNG instead. Expect them to be several times larger.

Option 2: Teach Windows to open HEIC

Windows can display HEIC files once it has the right codecs. In the Microsoft Store, search for HEIF Image Extensions, which is free. On some PCs you'll also need HEVC Video Extensions, which Microsoft charges a small fee for unless your PC maker pre-installed it.

With both installed, HEIC files open in the Photos app and show thumbnails in File Explorer. This is the right fix if you only need to look at the photos on your own machine.

It doesn't help when you need to send the photos somewhere else. A visa portal, a print kiosk or a colleague on an older PC still won't accept HEIC, so you'll end up converting anyway.

Option 3: Stop the iPhone from creating HEIC files

You have two settings to choose from, and they behave differently.

Shoot in JPG from now on. Go to Settings › Camera › Formats and choose Most Compatible. New photos are saved as JPG. The downside is real: they take about twice the storage, so your phone and iCloud fill up faster. Existing photos stay as HEIC.

Keep HEIC on the phone, get JPG on the PC. Go to Settings › Photos, scroll to Transfer to Mac or PC, and choose Automatic. When you import over a USB cable, the iPhone converts the photos to JPG on the way out. Your phone keeps the space savings. This is the setting most Windows users actually want.

Note that the automatic option only applies to cable transfers. Photos you email, upload to a cloud drive or move with a third-party app may still arrive as HEIC.

Does converting HEIC to JPG lose quality?

A little, in theory. Both formats are lossy, so converting re-compresses the image once. In practice, at a quality setting of 85 to 90% you won't see a difference on screen or in normal prints. Avoid converting the same photo back and forth repeatedly, because each round trip loses a bit more.

The bigger change is file size. JPG files from HEIC are usually one and a half to two times larger, which is the space Apple was saving in the first place.