Convert HEIC to JPG

Because it is a HEIC file, not a JPG. HEIC is the container Apple has used for camera photos since iOS 11, and support for it outside Apple devices is patchy. Windows needs a codec from the Microsoft Store, plenty of chat apps and web upload forms reject the extension outright, and older Android phones cannot decode it at all. Converting the photo to JPG removes the problem, because JPG is the one image format that every device, browser, and app has been able to read for thirty years.

Yes. It is free, there is no account to create, and nothing is stamped onto the photo. You get a plain JPG back with no watermark, no logo, and no downscaled preview standing in for the real file.

HEIC is a High Efficiency Image File, a container built on the same HEIF specification that stores frames encoded with HEVC. Apple switched the camera roll to it in iOS 11 because it stores a photo at roughly half the size of the equivalent JPG at similar visual quality, which is a large saving across thousands of photos. The tradeoff is compatibility: the space saving only helps while the photo stays inside the Apple ecosystem.

There is a re-encode, so it is not mathematically lossless, but the JPG is written at quality 92, which is high enough that the difference is very hard to see on a normal photograph. Your pixel dimensions do not change: a 4032 by 3024 HEIC comes back as a 4032 by 3024 JPG. Expect the JPG to be larger on disk than the HEIC was, often around twice the size, because JPG is the less efficient format.

Up to 25 MB per image, and the photo must be no larger than 6000 pixels on its longest side. A standard 12 megapixel iPhone photo is about 4032 by 3024 and only a couple of megabytes, so it clears both limits easily. A 48 megapixel photo from a recent iPhone Pro shot in maximum resolution is 8064 by 6048 and will be refused, because it is over the 6000 pixel ceiling.

No. Phones normally store the pixels in sensor orientation and record a separate EXIF orientation tag saying how to rotate them, which is why a photo can look correct in one app and rotated in another. VidClean applies that rotation to the pixels themselves before writing the JPG, so the file is upright everywhere with no tag left to misinterpret.

No. The output JPG is written without EXIF metadata, so the capture date, GPS coordinates, camera model, and exposure settings are not carried over. That is a privacy benefit if you are about to post the photo publicly, and a drawback if you were relying on the timestamp for sorting. Keep the original HEIC if the metadata matters to you.

On VidClean's server. Browsers other than Safari cannot decode HEIC on their own, so a purely in-browser HEIC converter has to ship a large decoder into the page and then work through your device's memory, which is exactly where phones and older laptops struggle. Sending the file to a server that already has the decoder makes the conversion fast and identical on every device.

Both the HEIC you uploaded and the JPG it produced are deleted from the servers about 90 minutes after the job finishes. Nothing is viewed, shared, sold, or used for training. Download your JPG before that window closes, or use the email option on the results screen to send the download link to yourself.

Yes. Open Settings, then Camera, then Formats, and choose Most Compatible instead of High Efficiency. New photos are then captured as JPG. This changes nothing about the photos already in your library, so you will still need to convert those, but it stops the problem repeating.