HEIC vs JPG: what's the difference, and which should you use?
If you have an iPhone, you may have noticed your photos saving as .heic files instead of the familiar .jpg — and you may have discovered this the annoying way, when one of those files refused to open on a Windows PC or wouldn't upload to a website. So what is HEIC, how is it different from JPG, and which should you actually use? The short answer is that neither is simply "better." They're a trade-off, and which one is right depends on what you're doing with the photo.
What HEIC and JPG actually are
JPG (also written JPEG) is the classic image format. It's been around since the early 1990s, and it's the universal language of photos on the internet — every device, browser, and app understands it. That ubiquity is its greatest strength.
HEIC is much newer. It's Apple's name for an image stored using HEIF, a modern container format, with the picture compressed using the same efficient technology used in high-definition video. Apple made it the default on iPhones in 2017 (with iOS 11) because it packs a better image into a smaller file. When your iPhone saves a HEIC, it's using a smarter, more modern method than JPG's decades-old approach.
The real difference: efficiency vs. compatibility
The whole comparison comes down to two things pulling in opposite directions.
| HEIC | JPG | |
|---|---|---|
| File size | Roughly half the size for a similar-looking photo | Larger |
| Image quality | Better at the same file size; supports HDR and richer colour | Good, but older and less efficient |
| Compatibility | Limited — newer Apple devices, some others; patchy on Windows and older software | Universal — opens essentially everywhere |
| Transparency | Supported | Not supported |
| Best for | Saving storage on your own device | Sharing and uploading anywhere |
So HEIC genuinely wins on quality and size. A library of HEIC photos takes up about half the storage of the same photos as JPG, with no visible loss — that's a real benefit when your phone is full. It also handles HDR and a wider range of colours, which JPG can't.
But JPG wins decisively on compatibility, and compatibility is often what matters in the moment. A photo is only useful if the person you send it to can open it. Send someone a HEIC and there's a real chance they'll reply, "it won't open" — because their Windows PC, their older phone, or the website they're uploading to doesn't understand the format.
A simple way to think about it: HEIC is better for storing photos, JPG is better for sharing them. The friction happens when a photo stored as HEIC needs to be shared with something that only speaks JPG.
Why your HEIC files won't open
This is the most common HEIC frustration, and it's purely a compatibility gap, not a broken file. Apple devices handle HEIC natively. Windows can open them, but often only after installing an extra codec that isn't there by default — so on many PCs, double-clicking a HEIC just fails. Plenty of older apps, web upload forms, and non-Apple devices don't support it either. The file is perfectly fine; the software on the other end simply doesn't know how to read it. Converting it to JPG removes the problem entirely, because everything reads JPG.
Should you turn off HEIC on your iPhone?
You have a choice here. On an iPhone, Settings → Camera → Formats offers "High Efficiency" (HEIC) or "Most Compatible" (JPG). Which to pick depends on your habits:
- Keep HEIC (High Efficiency) if you mostly stay within Apple's world, you want to save storage, and you don't often send original photo files to people on other platforms.
- Switch to JPG (Most Compatible) if you regularly share photos with Windows users or older devices, upload to sites that reject HEIC, or you'd simply rather never deal with the "it won't open" conversation.
There's no wrong answer — it's about which trade-off suits you. Many people leave HEIC on for the storage savings and just convert the occasional photo when they need to share it.
Converting HEIC to JPG
When you do need a JPG, converting is quick. Be aware of two small things. First, converting re-compresses the image, so there's a tiny quality loss — invisible in normal use, but worth knowing. Second, the JPG will be noticeably larger than the HEIC was, since you're trading efficiency for compatibility.
One thing worth caring about is how you convert. Many online HEIC converters upload your photo to their servers to do the job. For a private photo that means handing it to a stranger's computer — and iPhone photos often carry GPS location data, so you could be sharing more than the picture. A converter that runs in your own browser avoids this entirely: the photo is decoded and re-saved on your own device and never uploaded.
Convert HEIC to JPG in your browser
Drop in your iPhone photos and get JPGs (or PNG/WebP) back — processed entirely on your own device, with nothing uploaded to any server.
Open the HEIC to JPG converter →The bottom line
HEIC is the more advanced format: smaller files, better quality, made for modern devices. JPG is the universal one: slightly less efficient, but it opens anywhere without a second thought. Keep your photos as HEIC to save space, switch your camera to JPG if you share widely and want zero hassle, and convert individual HEIC files to JPG whenever something on the other end can't read them. Understood as a trade-off rather than a contest, the choice is easy: use the efficient format to store, and the universal one to share.