How to Batch Convert HEIC to JPG on iPhone, Mac, and Windows

If you have an iPhone from 2017 or later and you’ve ever sent a photo to a friend on Windows, tried to upload one to a site that doesn’t recognize the format, or emailed a batch of vacation shots to your parents, you’ve probably heard “I can’t open this file.” The culprit is HEIC, Apple’s default image format since iOS 11.

HEIC (High Efficiency Image Container, built on the HEIF standard) is a genuinely good format. It’s about half the size of JPEG at the same visible quality, supports 16-bit color depth, and stores richer metadata. Apple switched to it in 2017 because phone photos were eating up storage faster than hardware could grow. That much is fine.

The problem is that HEIC isn’t universally supported. Windows 10 and earlier need a paid codec pack to display it. Many web forms reject it. Older editing tools choke on it. And plenty of people receiving your photos won’t know what they’re looking at.

This guide covers the reliable ways to convert HEIC to JPG, one file or a thousand at a time, on whatever OS you’re using.

Option 1: Stop HEIC at the source (iPhone)

Before converting, consider whether you need HEIC at all. If you mainly share photos with friends on Android or Windows, or if you publish to platforms that don’t like HEIC (some older WordPress versions still don’t), you can switch your iPhone to shoot in “Most Compatible” mode (JPEG) instead.

Settings → Camera → Formats → Most Compatible

Going forward, every photo you take will be a JPEG. You lose the HEIC storage savings (roughly 50% more space used), but you gain universal compatibility.

You can also leave your iPhone in HEIC mode and tell it to convert on export:

Settings → Photos → Transfer to Mac or PC → Automatic

With this setting, photos stay HEIC in your iPhone library but are auto-converted to JPEG when you AirDrop to a Mac, copy off via USB cable, or share to certain apps. This is my preferred setup: smaller library, compatible exports.

Option 2: Convert on your iPhone

Several options, all first-party:

Use the Files app share sheet

1. Open Files on your iPhone.
2. Navigate to the HEIC photos (Photos library, iCloud Drive, or local folder).
3. Select one or multiple files (tap Select in the top-right).
4. Tap the share icon → Save to Files as a different format, or use a converter app from the share sheet.

Use the Shortcuts app (free, built-in)

The Shortcuts app can batch-convert files to any format. Apple publishes a pre-built “Convert Images” shortcut. To add it:

1. Open Shortcuts → Gallery.
2. Search “convert images”.
3. Tap Add Shortcut on the official Apple one.
4. Run it, pick the photos, choose JPEG, and save them to Photos or Files.

This runs entirely on your phone with no upload anywhere.

Email the photos to yourself

A low-effort workaround: email the HEIC photos to yourself. iOS auto-converts attachments to JPEG on send (for many email clients). Save the attached JPEGs on the receiving end. Low quality because of the attachment-size compression, but it works for a one-off.

Option 3: Convert on macOS

If you’re using a Mac, every photo moving between your phone and computer already touches macOS. The built-in Photos app handles conversion transparently, but there’s more you can do.

Quickest: use Preview

1. Open a HEIC file in Preview (double-click).
2. File → Export.
3. Choose Format → JPEG.
4. Click Save.

For batches, select multiple HEICs in Finder, open them all in Preview, then File → Export Selected Images → JPEG. This handles dozens of files in one pass.

Automator or Shortcuts

If you convert frequently, build a right-click service:

1. Open Shortcuts on macOS.
2. Create a new shortcut with the Convert Image action.
3. Set Input Images → format JPEG.
4. In the shortcut settings, enable Receive Images from Finder → Quick Actions.
5. Save.

Now right-click any HEIC file in Finder and you’ll see a “Convert to JPEG” option.

Command line

If you’re comfortable in Terminal:

# Install ImageMagick once:
brew install imagemagick

# Then convert a folder:
cd ~/path/to/photos
for f in *.HEIC; do
  magick "$f" "${f%.HEIC}.jpg"
done

Option 4: Convert on Windows

Windows 11 supports HEIC natively for viewing but still needs an extra step for conversion.

Photos app (Windows 11)

1. Open a HEIC file in Photos.
2. Click the … menu → Save as.
3. Pick JPEG.

For batches, this gets tedious. Better options below.

HEIF Image Extensions (from Microsoft Store, free)

Install Microsoft’s official HEIF Image Extensions add-on from the Microsoft Store. After installing, Windows can view HEIC files natively, though full read/write support sometimes requires the paid HEVC codec (about $1).

IrfanView or XnConvert (free)

These are classic Windows image tools with reliable batch conversion. XnConvert in particular handles HEIC → JPEG conversion in bulk with a clean UI:

1. Drag your HEIC folder into XnConvert.
2. Go to the Output tab, pick JPEG, set quality (80 is a good default).
3. Click Convert.

Command line (PowerShell)

With ImageMagick installed:

cd C:\path\to\photos
Get-ChildItem *.HEIC | ForEach-Object {
  magick $_.FullName "$($_.BaseName).jpg"
}

Option 5: Convert in the browser

If you don’t want to install anything and don’t want to upload your photos to a random site, this is the cleanest path. Our PNG to WebP tool accepts HEIC inputs in most modern browsers (Safari and Chrome read HEIC natively; Firefox depends on OS support). Drop in HEIC files, pick JPEG as the target format… wait, actually the tool outputs WebP and JPEG depending on the variant.

To be direct: our JPG compressor will accept HEIC inputs on Safari and convert to JPEG on the fly, with quality control and batch support. The conversion happens entirely in your browser with no upload.

Chrome on macOS also reads HEIC. Chrome on Windows and Linux typically doesn’t, so if you’re on those platforms use one of the native options above.

Preserving (or stripping) metadata

HEIC photos carry the same EXIF metadata as JPEG — including GPS coordinates. When you convert, most tools preserve the metadata by default. This is usually what you want for personal archives.

If you’re publishing the converted JPEGs publicly, see our EXIF metadata guide — you’ll want to strip location data before posting. Our browser tools strip non-essential metadata automatically.

Quality loss

Going from HEIC to JPEG is a lossy conversion from one lossy format to another. The good news: at sensible quality settings (80+), the difference is invisible unless you’re pixel-peeping. HEIC encodes more efficiently than JPEG, so the JPEG output has to spend more bytes to match the visual quality. Expect the converted JPEG to be roughly 1.5–2× the size of the HEIC original.

If you want to preserve maximum quality for an archival export, convert at quality 95. For web upload or sharing, 80 is still the sweet spot.

A workflow I actually use

My personal setup as an iPhone photographer who publishes to Shopify, Instagram, and Squarespace clients:

1. iPhone stays in HEIC mode (saves space on device and iCloud).
2. iPhone set to Transfer to Mac or PC → Automatic so exports are JPEG.
3. On Mac, I keep a “Publish” folder where I drop exported photos.
4. A simple Shortcut watches that folder and batch-resizes and compresses to JPEG at 1600 px / quality 85.
5. For clients who want WebP for their site, I run the resulting JPEG through our PNG-to-WebP tool as a final step.

Two-click export, compatible everywhere, and the master stays HEIC on device.

The bottom line

• If you mostly send photos to non-Apple users, switch iPhone to Most Compatible in Camera settings.
• If you keep HEIC on device, use the Transfer → Automatic setting so exports are auto-converted.
• For existing HEIC archives, batch-convert with Preview (Mac), XnConvert (Windows), or Shortcuts (iPhone/Mac).
• For one-off conversions without installing software, our JPG compressor accepts HEIC in Safari and Chrome and outputs JPEG in your browser with no upload.