You take a gorgeous photo of your dinner or a sunset on your iPhone, AirDrop it to your PC, and suddenly you’re looking at a file extension that looks like alphabet soup. HEIC. It’s frustrating. You just wanted a normal photo to upload to a website or send to a friend who doesn't use Apple products.
Apple switched to HEIF (High Efficiency Image File Format) years ago—specifically with iOS 11—because it saves a massive amount of storage space while keeping image quality high. It’s objectively better tech. But the rest of the digital world hasn't fully caught up yet. If you need to convert HEIC to JPG on iPhone, you don't actually need to download some sketchy third-party app that’s going to spam you with ads.
Honestly, the tools are already sitting right there on your home screen. You've just gotta know which buttons to poke.
Why your iPhone is obsessed with HEIC
Before we fix it, you should probably know why this is happening. HEIC is Apple’s version of HEIF. It’s a container. Think of it like a more efficient suitcase for your data. According to the developers at MPEG, who helped create the standard, HEIC can compress a photo to about half the size of a JPEG without losing visible detail.
On a 128GB iPhone, that’s the difference between having 10,000 photos or 20,000. It's a big deal. But when you try to upload that HEIC file to a government website or a legacy work portal, the server basically throws a tantrum because it doesn't recognize the "high efficiency" coding.
The "Files App" trick: The fastest way to convert
This is the method I use most often. It’s built-in, free, and lets you do bulk conversions in seconds. Most people forget the Files app even exists, but it’s basically a mini-computer file manager.
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- Open your Photos app and select the images you want to change.
- Tap that Share icon (the little square with an arrow pointing up).
- Choose Copy Photos.
- Now, exit and open the Files app.
- Long-press on any empty space in a folder (like "On My iPhone") and hit Paste.
Here is the magic part: the moment you paste them into Files, the iPhone usually keeps them as HEIC. To force the conversion, tap the three dots in the corner, hit Select, grab your photos, and then tap the three dots again at the bottom right. Choose Convert Image.
You'll get a choice: JPEG, PNG, or HEIF. Pick JPEG. It’ll ask if you want the original size or a smaller one. Go with Actual Size unless you're trying to save data. Boom. You now have JPG copies sitting right next to your originals.
Stop the problem before it starts
If you’re totally done with HEIC and never want to see it again, you can just tell your iPhone to stop. It’s a toggle in settings. Just keep in mind that your photos will start taking up way more space.
Go to Settings, scroll down to Camera, and tap Formats. You’ll see two options: High Efficiency and Most Compatible.
Switch it to Most Compatible.
From this moment on, every photo you take will be a standard JPEG. It’s simpler, sure. But if you have a base-model iPhone with low storage, you might regret this in six months when you get that "Storage Almost Full" popup. I usually tell people to keep it on High Efficiency and just convert the few photos they actually need to share.
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Automatic transfer trick
There is a middle ground. You can keep HEIC on your phone but have the iPhone "translate" them to JPG automatically whenever you move them to a Mac or PC.
In Settings, go to Photos. Scroll all the way to the bottom. Under the "Transfer to Mac or PC" section, make sure Automatic is checked. When this is on, your iPhone checks the device you’re plugging into. If that computer doesn't support HEIC, the iPhone converts the files on the fly during the transfer. It's surprisingly smart.
Using the Shortcuts app for power users
If you find yourself needing to convert HEIC to JPG on iPhone every single day, you should build a Shortcut. It takes about 60 seconds to set up and then it becomes a one-tap button in your Share Sheet.
- Open the Shortcuts app.
- Tap the + to create a new one.
- Search for "Select Photos" and add it. Toggle on "Select Multiple."
- Search for "Convert Image." It usually defaults to "Convert Photos to JPEG."
- Search for "Save to Photo Album."
- Give it a name like "Make it JPG."
Now, when you're looking at a photo, you just hit Share, scroll down to your new shortcut, and the phone does the heavy lifting. No copying, no pasting, no jumping between apps.
Common misconceptions about JPG conversion
A lot of people think that converting a HEIC to a JPG will somehow "unlock" more detail. It won't. You can't add data that wasn't there to begin with. In fact, because JPEG is a "lossy" format, you might actually lose a tiny bit of metadata or dynamic range in the process, though you’d need a magnifying glass to see it.
Another myth? That you need a subscription service. There are dozens of apps on the App Store like "HEIC Converter" or "JPEG Wizard." Avoid them. They are almost all "freemium" traps that want $4.99 a week just to do something your phone does natively.
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Dealing with "Shared with You" photos
Sometimes you aren't the one taking the photo. If a friend sends you an HEIC via iMessage, it might not play nice with your other apps. The easiest way to handle these is to save them to your Photos library first, then use the Files app method mentioned above.
If you're on a Mac and trying to handle iPhone photos, the process is even lazier. You can just open the HEIC in Preview, go to File > Export, and change the format to JPEG.
Actionable Next Steps
If you need to convert a photo right now, don't overthink it. Use the Files app. It's the most reliable way to ensure the file actually changes its extension without losing the original.
- Check your storage: Before switching your Camera Formats to "Most Compatible," see how much room you have. If you’re under 10GB of free space, stay on HEIC.
- Clean up the duplicates: Once you convert a batch of photos to JPG, you’ll have two versions of every image. Delete the JPGs once you’ve uploaded them to keep your library clean.
- Use the Cloud: If you upload to Google Photos or Dropbox, those services often handle the conversion for you in the background when you download them to a desktop.
Mastering the convert HEIC to JPG on iPhone workflow basically removes the only downside of Apple’s modern camera system. You get the storage savings of the new format with the universal compatibility of the old one. It's the best of both worlds.