Every iPhone owner eventually faces the question: keep shooting HEIC, or switch to good old JPEG? Both are lossy photo formats, but they come from different eras and make different trade-offs. Here’s how they compare and which to choose for different situations.
Quick verdict
- Keep HEIC for photos that live on your iPhone, iPad, Mac or iCloud. You get smaller files and the best quality per megabyte.
- Use JPEG when a photo leaves the Apple world: email to a Windows user, a website upload, a print shop, a government form.
- Best of both: shoot HEIC and convert to JPG only when you share.
HEIC vs JPEG comparison
| HEIC | JPEG | |
|---|---|---|
| Introduced | 2015 (Apple adoption 2017) | 1992 |
| Compression | HEVC (H.265) | DCT (JPEG baseline) |
| Typical 12 MP iPhone photo | ~1–3 MB | ~2–5 MB |
| Quality at same size | Higher | Lower; more blocking artifacts |
| Color depth | 8- to 16-bit | 8-bit |
| Transparency | Yes | No |
| Depth maps, HDR, sequences | Yes | No (limited workarounds) |
| Opens on Windows | With extensions | Yes |
| Opens in web browsers | Safari only | All |
| Accepted by websites/forms | Often not | Almost always |
| Licensing | HEVC patents | Free |
File size
This is HEIC’s headline advantage. Because it uses video-grade compression, a HEIC photo is typically around half the size of a JPEG with the same visible quality. Over a library of 20,000 photos that can mean tens of gigabytes — the difference between needing the next iCloud storage tier or not.
When you convert HEIC to JPG, expect the JPG to be 1.5–2× larger than the original. That’s normal, not a sign that something went wrong.
Image quality
At equal file sizes HEIC wins clearly: fine textures like hair, grass and fabric survive better, and you see less of JPEG’s characteristic “blockiness” in skies and shadows. At high JPEG quality (85–95) the difference on screen is small, which is why a well-made conversion looks identical to most people.
HEIC also supports more than 8 bits per channel and wide color gamuts. iPhones record in Display P3, which can show more saturated reds and greens than standard sRGB. JPEG can carry a P3 color profile too — good converters, including ours, embed it so colors don’t look dull after conversion.
Compatibility
Here JPEG is unbeatable. It works on every operating system, browser, photo printer, social network and upload form. HEIC still runs into walls:
- Windows needs extra extensions — see How to open HEIC files on Windows.
- Chrome, Firefox and Edge can’t display HEIC on web pages.
- Many websites reject
.heicuploads outright.
If any of those apply to you regularly, that’s a strong argument for converting — or for shooting JPEG in the first place.
Editing
JPEG is supported by every editor ever made. HEIC is supported by Apple Photos, Lightroom, Photoshop (on Windows only with the system codecs installed), GIMP and most modern tools, but not everything. Neither format is ideal for heavy editing, since both are lossy; for serious editing, photographers shoot RAW instead — see HEIF vs RAW on iPhone. For a lossless intermediate, convert to PNG or TIFF.
So should you convert HEIC to JPEG?
Convert when:
- you’re sending photos to someone on Windows or an older Android phone
- a website, form or print service asks for JPG
- you’re moving photos into software that doesn’t support HEIC
Don’t bother converting when:
- photos stay on Apple devices or in iCloud/Google Photos
- you’re archiving originals (keep the HEIC — it’s smaller and higher quality)
When you do convert, our HEIC to JPG converter handles batches, keeps the date taken, and runs in your browser with no uploads. For other ways, see How to convert HEIC to JPG on any device.
Or switch your iPhone to JPEG
If you convert nearly every photo, you can make the iPhone shoot JPEG directly: Settings → Camera → Formats → Most Compatible. You’ll use roughly twice the storage, and a few features need High Efficiency mode. See How to turn off HEIC on iPhone for the full trade-offs.
What about WebP?
For websites, neither HEIC nor JPEG is the best choice: WebP is supported by all browsers and is about 25–35% smaller than JPEG. If you’re publishing iPhone photos online, try HEIC to WebP.
Want the background on the format itself? Read What is a HEIC file? and HEIF vs HEIC.