How to open iPhone HEIC photos on Windows
You copy photos from an iPhone to a PC and some of them will not open, or a website refuses to take them. The reason is usually the file format: HEIC. It is a good format, but it is not accepted everywhere.
What HEIC is
HEIC is the format many iPhones use for photos by default. It keeps good quality at a smaller file size than JPG, which saves space on the phone. The catch is that many Windows programs, websites and forms still expect JPG, so a HEIC file can fail to open or upload.
Fix 1: convert the photos to JPG
- Open the Filesmingo board and drop your HEIC photos onto it.
- Select the photo and open the Convert tab to save it as JPG. A high quality setting keeps the detail.
- Compare with the slider, then download the JPG.
The conversion happens in your browser, so your photos are not uploaded anywhere. You can drop many photos at once.
Fix 2: make the iPhone save JPG from now on
On the iPhone, open Settings, then Camera, then Formats, and choose Most Compatible. New photos are then saved as JPG, which opens everywhere. This does not change photos you already took, so convert those with the first fix.
When the JPG is still too big
A JPG from a high resolution photo can still be several megabytes. If a form has a size limit, compress it to a target size after converting, for example 200 KB.
Keep your originals
Keep the original HEIC files as your master copies. They hold the most detail, and you can convert again whenever you need a different JPG.