What is a HEIC file?

HEIC stands for High Efficiency Image Container. Apple made it the default camera format in iOS 11, released in 2017. Every photo your iPhone has taken since then is probably a .heic file unless you changed a setting.

Why Apple switched to it

HEIC stores a photograph in roughly half the space a JPG needs, at comparable quality. On a phone holding thousands of pictures, halving the storage is a substantial gain. It can also hold things JPG cannot: image sequences such as Live Photos, transparency, and richer colour information.

Why it causes trouble

JPG has been universally readable for three decades. HEIC has not. Windows needs an extension installed before it will show HEIC thumbnails, many websites reject the format at upload, older photo software does not recognise it, and plenty of printing services will not accept it.

So the format is excellent while the photo stays inside Apple's world, and becomes an obstacle the moment it leaves.

What you can do about it

• Convert the files you need to share. Converting to JPG is the usual answer — it opens everywhere.
• Stop your iPhone producing them. In Settings → Camera → Formats, choosing “Most Compatible” makes the camera save JPG instead. This changes future photos only; existing ones stay HEIC.
• Teach Windows to read them. Microsoft publishes HEIF extensions for Windows, covered in our Windows guide.

Is HEIC the same as HEIF?

Near enough, in daily use. HEIF is the container standard; HEIC is the common form of it that stores HEVC-compressed images. You may see either .heic or .heif on files; the converters here accept both.