HEIC Is Technically Better Than JPG. Here Is Why You Still Need to Convert.
HEIC Is Technically Better Than JPG. Here Is Why You Still Need to Convert.
HEIC is a better format than JPG by every technical measure that matters for still photography. It stores images at roughly half the file size with equivalent visual quality, supports 16-bit color depth compared to JPG's 8-bit, handles transparency, and allows image sequences that JPG cannot. Apple switched iPhones to HEIC as the default camera format in 2017, with iOS 11, specifically because the format's efficiency delivered real benefits to users: more photos per gigabyte of device storage at the same quality level.
And yet the first question most people ask when they encounter a HEIC file is how to convert it to something else.
The reason is not a flaw in HEIC itself. It is the gap between where HEIC works and where JPG works. On Apple devices within the Apple ecosystem, HEIC is nearly invisible. Send that file anywhere else, and the format's advantages become irrelevant because the file often will not open at all.
To understand why Apple made the switch, it helps to understand what HEVC compression achieves at the level of image data.
HEIC wraps still images using the HEVC codec, High Efficiency Video Coding, also called H.265. HEVC was developed by the Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding, a group organized by the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group and ISO/IEC MPEG, and published as a standard in 2013. It was designed primarily for video but its intra-frame compression, which encodes individual frames without reference to adjacent frames, applies to still images effectively.
JPEG, the compression algorithm inside JPG files, was standardized in 1992 by the Joint Photographic Experts Group and has not changed fundamentally since. At similar visual quality, HEVC-compressed images typically achieve 40 to 50 percent smaller file sizes than JPEG-compressed images. Google's own research on the related HEIF format, published when evaluating competing formats, confirmed compression ratios in this range across representative test image sets.
For Apple, the practical consequence was clear: an iPhone with 64 GB of storage could hold roughly twice as many photos if the camera used HEIC instead of JPEG. The quality was higher, the files were smaller, and the technology was proven. The only question was whether the rest of the world's software would cooperate.
HEVC carries patent royalty obligations. The patent pool for HEVC is divided across several licensing entities, and the licensing terms have been contested enough that major browser developers have taken different positions on implementing HEVC decoding.
Google has not added HEIC display support to Chrome on Windows and Android as of 2025. Firefox has similarly declined to support HEIC natively. The licensing situation is the primary reason cited for this absence. On macOS and iOS, Safari displays HEIC correctly because Apple pays for the necessary licenses and controls the platform. On cross-platform browsers running on Windows and Android, HEIC support depends on the operating system providing a decoder.
Microsoft added HEIC support to Windows through a paid codec in the Microsoft Store, initially listed at $0.99. The codec is required for Windows users to open HEIC files in standard applications without third-party software. The requirement is a minor obstacle, but for anyone receiving HEIC files from an iPhone user, the experience of trying to open the file and getting an error is common enough to generate a steady stream of conversion requests.
Social media platforms handle HEIC differently. Instagram, Twitter, and most other platforms accept HEIC uploads but convert the files to JPEG or WebP during ingestion. The conversion happens server-side and the user sees the result, not the HEIC file. However, the conversion is performed by the platform at whatever quality settings it chooses, which may be lower than a conversion the photographer would have made themselves.
Converting HEIC to JPG involves re-encoding: the HEIC pixels are decoded fully, then re-encoded using JPEG compression. Because JPEG is a lossy codec, this process introduces compression artifacts that were not present in the HEIC source. The degree of quality loss depends entirely on the JPEG quality setting used during conversion.
A JPEG quality setting of 85 out of 100 is the standard threshold used by most professional tools above which the output is visually indistinguishable from the source at typical viewing sizes. At this setting, the resulting JPG file will be larger than the HEIC source but visually equivalent. A quality setting below 70 produces visible artifacts, particularly in areas of fine detail, gradients, and high-frequency texture.
The 16-bit color depth of HEIC cannot be preserved in JPEG, which stores 8 bits per channel. For the vast majority of photos taken under normal lighting conditions, this reduction is not noticeable. In high dynamic range photos shot in very bright or very dark conditions, the 16-bit depth in HEIC allows smoother gradations in highlights and shadows. JPEG's 8-bit limit can produce banding in these areas. The quality difference is visible in careful side-by-side comparison but not in typical browsing or sharing contexts.
Wide color gamut information, using the Display P3 color space that iPhones use when capturing in wide-gamut mode, may or may not be preserved depending on whether the conversion tool handles color space profiles. A converter that ignores the color profile and converts assuming sRGB will produce subtly desaturated colors compared to the original in some images.
HEIC is worth keeping for images that will stay within the Apple ecosystem. Photos archived to iCloud, shared between Apple devices, or viewed exclusively in Apple Photos benefit from the smaller file sizes and higher color depth without any compatibility cost.
Converting to JPG makes sense before uploading to any website that does not explicitly support HEIC, sharing with contacts who do not use Apple devices, submitting to professional services like printing labs or stock photography platforms, embedding in documents, sending via email to a broad recipient list, or using in any creative workflow that includes non-Apple software.
For bulk conversion of an iPhone photo library, Apple's built-in approach under Settings > Camera > Formats allows switching between High Efficiency (HEIC) and Most Compatible (JPEG) capture modes. This affects future photos. For existing HEIC files, a converter that processes files in the browser without upload provides the fastest path to JPG without installing software.
EXIF metadata from the HEIC file, including GPS coordinates, timestamp, camera settings, and device information, is preserved during HEIC-to-JPG conversion if the converter supports EXIF transfer. Many tools transfer EXIF correctly. Some tools strip it, either as a privacy measure or because the implementation does not include EXIF handling.
Apple-specific HEIC features, including depth maps from Portrait Mode, HDR tone-mapping instructions, and Live Photo motion data, are not preserved in JPEG output. These features require the HEIC container format and are unavailable in JPEG. The resulting JPG is a single still image representing the primary photo.
For photos where the original HEIC contains data worth keeping, archiving the HEIC file and converting a copy to JPG for distribution is the approach that preserves the most information.
Conclusion
HEIC's technical superiority over JPG is real and documented. Apple adopted it for good reasons in 2017, and those reasons have not changed. The compatibility landscape is the reason conversion remains necessary, not any deficiency in HEIC as a format.
For converting iPhone photos to JPG for universal compatibility, ToolHQ's HEIC to JPG converter handles the process in the browser without requiring file upload to a server, producing standard JPEG output ready for any platform.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does Apple use HEIC instead of JPG?
Apple switched to HEIC with iOS 11 in 2017 because it produces files roughly 50% smaller than JPG at equivalent visual quality, preserving storage space on devices with large camera outputs.
Why don't browsers support HEIC?
HEIC uses HEVC compression, which carries patent licensing costs. Chrome and Firefox have not integrated native HEIC support due to those royalty obligations.
Does converting HEIC to JPG reduce quality?
Yes, but minimally at high quality settings. JPG is a lossy format, so some information is discarded during conversion. At 85-90% quality settings, the visual difference is imperceptible in most photos.