Since iOS 11 in 2017, iPhones and iPads have saved photos as HEIC by default, while the rest of the world has spent three decades sharing JPGs. If you have ever emailed a photo from an iPhone only to have the recipient say it will not open, you have run straight into the gap between these two formats. Neither is simply better; they were designed for different jobs.
What HEIC and JPG actually are
JPG (also written JPEG) is a 1992 standard that stores a single photo using discrete cosine transform compression. It breaks the image into 8×8 pixel blocks and throws away fine detail your eye is least likely to miss. It is lossy, it is old, and it is understood by essentially every device, browser, printer, and app ever made.
HEIC is Apple’s name for an image stored in a HEIF (High Efficiency Image File Format) container, compressed with HEVC — the same codec (H.265) used for high-efficiency video. Instead of only compressing within a block, HEVC uses smarter intra-frame prediction, larger and variable block sizes, and more efficient entropy coding. The practical result is dramatically better compression for the same visual quality.
File size and quality
The headline difference is size. At comparable perceived quality, a HEIC file is commonly around half the size of the equivalent JPG. Flip that around and it means that at the same file size, HEIC generally looks cleaner — fewer of the blocky artifacts and color banding you see when a JPG is pushed hard. For a phone holding thousands of photos, halving storage is a real benefit, which is exactly why Apple made the switch.
Features beyond the pixels
HEIC is not just smaller; the container can hold things JPG cannot:
- Higher color depth: HEIC supports 10-bit and higher color, which preserves smoother gradients in skies and shadows. Standard JPG is limited to 8 bits per channel.
- Transparency: HEIC can store an alpha channel. JPG has no transparency at all — every pixel is opaque.
- Image sequences: a single HEIC file can bundle multiple frames, which is how iPhone Live Photos and burst shots are stored.
- Depth and auxiliary maps: Portrait-mode depth data and edit instructions can ride along in the same file.
- Rich metadata: HEIF was designed from the start to carry extensive metadata cleanly.
JPG has none of these. It is a flat, single, opaque, 8-bit image — and that simplicity is precisely why it is so universally supported.
Compatibility: the deciding factor for most people
This is where JPG wins decisively. A JPG opens on Windows 7, an Android phone from 2014, a smart TV, a print kiosk, and every web browser without a second thought. HEIC support is far narrower. Windows needs an extra codec from the Microsoft Store, many web apps reject HEIC uploads outright, older Android versions cannot preview it, and plenty of photo-editing tools still do not read it.
So the honest rule of thumb is: keep photos as HEIC while they live on your Apple devices, but convert to a widely supported format the moment you need to send, upload, edit elsewhere, or archive them for the long term.
Editing and archiving
For editing, format matters less than the software you use — modern versions of Photoshop, Affinity, and Lightroom handle HEIC, but many free and web-based editors do not. For long-term archiving, think about who will open the file in ten years. A format that every program can read is a safer bet than one that depends on a specific codec being installed.
Where PNG fits — and why our tool outputs it
You have a third option: PNG. Unlike both HEIC and JPG, PNG is lossless — it records every pixel exactly with no compression artifacts, and it supports clean transparency. That makes PNG ideal when you want a pristine copy for editing, screenshots, graphics, or archiving, and it opens everywhere JPG does.
The trade-off is size: a lossless PNG is usually larger than a lossy JPG of the same photo. So a reasonable way to think about it is — JPG for small, share-anywhere photos; PNG when fidelity and universal support both matter. Our free, in-browser tool converts HEIC and HEIF to PNG so you get that lossless, universally readable copy without your images ever leaving your device. If you want to weigh the two directly, see our HEIC vs PNG comparison, and when you are ready you can convert your files here.
Frequently asked questions
Does converting HEIC to JPG lose quality?
Slightly, yes. JPG is lossy, so re-encoding a HEIC as JPG adds a second round of compression on top of the first. For most everyday photos the difference is invisible, but if you want a copy with zero added loss, convert to PNG instead — it preserves every pixel exactly.
Is HEIC better than JPG?
For storage efficiency and technical features, yes — HEIC packs more quality into fewer bytes and can hold color depth, transparency, and depth data JPG cannot. For raw compatibility, JPG still wins, because it opens on virtually anything. The “better” format depends entirely on what you are about to do with the file.
Why do some websites reject my HEIC uploads?
Many sites only accept the image types their software knows how to decode and display, and HEIC is often not on that list. Converting to JPG or PNG first solves it. See our guide on converting iPhone photos for a walkthrough.
