Convert HEIC to PNG

Why your iPhone photos are HEIC files

Since iOS 11, iPhones and iPads have saved photos as HEIC by default instead of JPEG. The format stores an image at roughly half the file size for comparable quality, which is why Apple switched: it doubles how many photos fit on a device.

The catch is support. HEIC relies on HEVC compression, which is patent-encumbered, so a great deal of software never implemented it. Your photo is not corrupted — the program you are opening it in simply cannot read the format.

Why convert HEIC to PNG?

PNG is lossless, so the conversion adds no further compression damage on top of what the HEIC already has. It is the right choice when the image will be edited again, annotated, or cropped repeatedly — each JPG save would degrade it a little more, while PNG will not.

It is also the safer option for screenshots, receipts, documents photographed on a phone, and anything containing fine text, where JPG compression tends to smear edges.

How to stop your iPhone taking HEIC photos

If you keep running into this, you can change the format the camera saves in. This affects new photos only — existing HEIC files stay as they are, so you will still need to convert those.

1. Open Settings on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Tap Camera, then Formats.
3. Choose Most Compatible. The camera will save JPEG from now on.

There is a related setting under Settings › Photos › Transfer to Mac or PC. Set it to Automatic and iOS converts photos to JPEG as it transfers them.

Why is the PNG so much bigger than the HEIC?

Because PNG never throws information away. HEIC achieves its small size through aggressive lossy compression; PNG stores every pixel exactly as decoded. A 2 MB HEIC photo commonly becomes a 10 MB PNG or larger.

That size is the price of losslessness. If the file needs to be small and will not be edited further, JPG or WebP will serve you better.

Converting to PNG cannot recover detail the HEIC already discarded — it only guarantees nothing further is lost.

What happens to Live Photos, depth and HDR data

A single HEIC file can hold far more than one image: the frames of a Live Photo, a depth map from Portrait mode, an HDR gain map, and several alternative renderings. Standard image formats have nowhere to put any of that.

Converting extracts the main photograph — the picture you actually see — and writes it as PNG. The motion, depth and HDR layers are left behind, and the originals on your device are untouched, so nothing is lost from your library.

Converting without uploading your photos

Nearly every HEIC converter on the web uploads your photos to a server, converts them there, and sends them back. Your camera roll is unusually personal — photos carry faces, locations and timestamps — and once a file is on someone else's server you are trusting their retention policy.

Morphixel does the conversion inside your browser instead. The decoder runs on your own device, so the photo never travels anywhere. You can verify this: open your browser's network tab, convert a photo, and watch that no upload occurs. Once the page has loaded you can even disconnect from the internet entirely and it still works.