HEIC to JPG Converter

HEIC (High Efficiency Image Container) stores photos using HEVC/H.265 video compression technology. When Apple introduced HEIC as the default camera format in iOS 11 (2017), the goal was to reduce file sizes by roughly 50% compared to JPEG while maintaining similar visual quality. A typical 12-megapixel iPhone photo saved as HEIC might be 1.5-2 MB, versus 3-4 MB as a JPEG. That efficiency comes with a compatibility cost: many Windows PCs, older email clients, web CMSs, and photo printing services still cannot open HEIC files natively.

This tool decodes HEIC/HEIF using a client-side WebAssembly build of libheif, the open-source library that handles HEVC image decoding. The decoded pixel data is drawn to an HTML5 canvas element at the photo's native resolution, then re-encoded as JPEG using the browser's canvas.toBlob API with your chosen quality setting (0.0 to 1.0). The entire pipeline runs in your browser tab - no bytes are uploaded to a conversion server.

Because HEVC decoding is CPU-intensive, converting a batch of 50+ high-resolution photos may take several minutes on older laptops or tablets. If the browser tab becomes unresponsive, try smaller batches (10-15 photos at a time). EXIF metadata, including orientation flags, is read when the decoder provides it, so rotated photos should display correctly. However, other EXIF fields (GPS, camera model, timestamps) may not transfer to the output JPEG depending on the library configuration.

JPEG is a lossy format: each encode step discards some image information to achieve compression. A quality setting of 0.85-0.92 is a good balance for web use and email - files are smaller than HEIC but still look sharp on screens. Lower quality (0.7-0.8) works for thumbnails or large batches where file size matters more than pixel-perfect clarity. If you plan to edit the photo in Photoshop or another editor after conversion, choose a higher quality (0.95+) or convert to PNG first to avoid stacking compression artifacts.

Worked example: A photographer shoots an event on an iPhone, then needs to deliver the photos to a client who uses Windows. Converting HEIC to JPG at 0.9 quality produces universally compatible files that open in any photo viewer, email attachment preview, or online gallery. The files are slightly larger than the original HEIC, but compatibility is more important than a few extra megabytes when the client cannot open HEIC at all.