HEIC Converter

HEIC (High Efficiency Image Container) became the default iPhone photo format in 2017 with iOS 11. It's roughly 50% smaller than JPG at the same quality. A typical 12MP photo takes up 2-3MB as HEIC versus 4-6MB as JPG. It also supports 10-bit color, HDR, depth maps, and Live Photo sequences.

Windows has no built-in HEIC support (you need a codec from the Microsoft Store), most Android devices have limited support, and web browsers can't display HEIC in image tags. Most upload forms, email clients, and older photo editors reject it too. Apple auto-converts to JPG when sharing via email or Messages, but not when you transfer via USB or cloud storage.

Converting to PNG is completely lossless. For JPG or WebP, quality 90%+ is visually identical to the original. HEIC does support 10-bit color and wide P3 gamut while JPG is limited to 8-bit sRGB, so very subtle color differences may occur in HDR content.

EXIF data like camera settings, GPS location, timestamps, and color profiles carry over. Apple-specific features like Portrait Mode depth maps, Live Photo motion, HDR gain maps, and edit history are lost though. The JPG and PNG formats simply have no way to store that data.