.heic — High Efficiency Image Container

Image image/heic

What a .heic file is

The format iPhones save photos in by default since iOS 11. It stores HEVC-compressed images at roughly half the size of an equivalent JPEG, and can hold multiple images, depth maps and Live Photo data in one file.

How to open it

macOS and iOS open it natively. Windows 11 needs the HEIF Image Extensions from the Microsoft Store. Most websites and older software will not accept it — convert to JPEG first.

Worth knowing

To stop your iPhone producing HEIC at all: Settings → Camera → Formats → Most Compatible.

How to identify a .heic file

A file's extension is only its name — renaming a.png to a.heic changes nothing inside. What software actually reads is the magic number, the first few bytes of the file.

Signature	ftypheic / ftypheix at offset 4
MIME type	image/heic
Category	Image

An ISO base media container, same family as MP4.

# what is this file really?
file mystery.heic

# look at the first bytes yourself
xxd mystery.heic | head -2
head -c 16 mystery.heic | xxd

# Windows PowerShell
Get-Content mystery.heic -AsByteStream -TotalCount 16 | Format-Hex

Converting it

We deliberately do not offer a browser-based HEIC converter. Chrome and Firefox cannot decode HEIC at all, so any such tool either uploads your photo to a server — which defeats the point of this site — or ships a megabyte of WebAssembly to do it locally. Neither is a good trade for a format your own device already converts for free:

On iPhone: Settings → Camera → Formats → Most Compatible makes the camera save JPEG from now on. For photos you already took, sharing them by email or AirDrop to a non-Apple device converts them automatically.
On macOS: open in Preview, then File → Export and choose JPEG.
On Windows 11: install the HEIF Image Extensions from the Microsoft Store, then open in Photos and Save as.
On the command line: heif-convert photo.heic photo.jpg, or magick photo.heic photo.jpg with a HEIF-enabled ImageMagick.

Frequently asked questions

What is a .heic file?

How do I open a .heic file?

macOS and iOS open it natively. Windows 11 needs the HEIF Image Extensions from the Microsoft Store. Most websites and older software will not accept it — convert to JPEG first.

Is .heic safe to open?

Yes. A .heic file is data, not code — opening one cannot execute anything by itself.

Can I change a file's extension to convert it?

No. Renaming changes the label, not the bytes. The one place it appears to work is between formats that genuinely share a container — renaming .docx to .zip works because a DOCX is a ZIP. Everything else needs a real converter.

Other image formats

Other formats

All file formats