PNG or JPG for iPhone photos
PNG keeps every pixel of the decoded photo, so it is large. The test HEIC photo, 2000 x 1333 and 618 KB, became a 2.75 MB PNG. The same photo as a JPG at quality 90 was 588 KB.
Choose PNG when you will edit the photo several times, or when an app wants PNG. For sharing, email and web pages, HEIC to JPG gives a much smaller file that looks the same.
| Test image | HEIC | PNG | JPG, quality 90 | Pixels | Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Photo | 618 KB | 2.75 MB | 588 KB | 2000 x 1333 | 3.4 s |
The HEIC file was written from the test photo with pillow-heif at quality 60. PNG keeps the decoded pixels exactly, which is why it is several times larger than the JPG. Timings: one thread of WebAssembly on Node v22.23.4, Intel(R) Xeon(R) Processor @ 2.10GHz, 2 cores, measured 2026-10-31. Other devices will differ.
How HEIC is read
HEIC is the format iPhones use by default. Many Windows apps, websites and older editors cannot open it. This page decodes it in your browser with libheif compiled to WebAssembly. That code downloads the first time you need it, about 2 MB, and is kept for later visits and offline use.
Colour
iPhone photos are often stored in a wider colour space than standard screens use. The colour profile is kept in the PNG so the colours stay right on screens that can show them, and look normal on screens that cannot.
Location and camera details
iPhone photos usually carry the GPS location where they were taken. That is removed by default, with the camera details and edit history. If you need the date or location for your own records, keep the original HEIC; it is not changed.
Keeping the PNG to a usable size
A full iPhone photo stored as PNG is several times larger than the HEIC, as the table shows. If you only need the PNG for a document, a slide or an editor, open Advanced settings and set a longest side, such as 2000 pixels. The picture still fills a screen and the file shrinks a lot. Screenshots taken on an iPhone are saved as PNG already, so they do not need converting.
Many photos at once
Drop a folder or a set of photos. Up to five start on their own, and the rest wait for you to press the button in the bar. Download them one by one or as a ZIP. Each photo counts once toward the free limit of 10 a day.
Questions
Is the PNG better quality than a JPG?
It is lossless, so it matches the decoded HEIC exactly. A JPG at quality 90 looks the same to most people at a fraction of the size.
Can I convert Live Photos?
The still image is converted. The video part of a Live Photo is a separate file and is not used.
Are my photos uploaded?
No. Everything runs in your browser.