Where big piles of HEIC come from
Nobody ends up with 600 HEIC files on purpose. Usually it’s one of these:
Copying photos off an iPhone
Plug an iPhone into a PC and import, and you’ll often get the originals, HEIC and all. (There’s an iPhone setting that converts on transfer, covered below.)
AirDrop to a Mac
AirDrop sends the original HEIC files. Fine on the Mac, but the moment you move that folder to a shared drive or a Windows colleague, it’s a problem.
iCloud Photos downloads
Downloading a selection from iCloud on the web often hands you the HEIC originals, sometimes zipped.
Google Takeout
A Takeout export of Google Photos often gives you iPhone photos back as HEIC, scattered across dated folders with JSON sidecar files.
In every case the fix is the same: drop the folder here.
What you get
| Before | After | |
|---|---|---|
| Format | .heic | .jpg |
| Opens on Windows without extras | Usually not | Yes |
| Date and camera info | Present | Kept |
| GPS location | Present | Removed (changeable) |
| File size | Smaller | Often 1.5 to 2 times larger |
| Colour | Display P3 | Display P3, profile embedded |
JPGs are bigger because HEIC compresses better. If disk space matters, lower the quality, or use Compress HEIC to hit a specific size.
Keeping a big batch under control
The converter doesn’t load 600 photos into memory. It works on a few at a time (one or two on a phone, more on a desktop), writes each JPG and moves on. If one file is damaged, it’s flagged and the rest carry on. Retry the failures at the end.
This page is deliberately simple: JPG only, sensible defaults. If you want presets for the web, email or sRGB, or other formats like WebP, use the full batch HEIC converter.
Stop the pile growing
Two iPhone settings help. Settings → Camera → Formats → Most Compatible makes the camera shoot JPG from now on. Settings → Photos → Transfer to Mac or PC → Automatic converts photos to JPG when you copy them over a cable. Our guide to iPhone camera settings covers the trade-offs.
A thousand photos, zero uploads
Uploading a whole Takeout export to a website just to convert it would take ages and hand someone your photo history. Here the files never leave your computer, so the only waiting is for your CPU.