Why does my iPhone take HEIC photos?

Your iPhone saves photos as .heic because Apple set High Efficiency as the default camera format in iOS 11 (2017) to cut the storage each photo uses roughly in half. It's a deliberate space-saving choice, not a bug. You can switch the camera to Most Compatible to capture JPGs instead — the setting lives in Settings › Camera › Formats.

When Apple moved to HEIC, photo resolutions were climbing and a high-resolution JPG was getting large. HEVC compression let the iPhone keep the same picture quality while taking about half the space — meaningful when a phone holds tens of thousands of photos. The same change made the camera capture HEVC video instead of H.264 for the same reason.

The trouble only appears when a .heic leaves the Apple world — AirDropped to a Windows laptop, emailed to an Android user, or uploaded to a site that predates HEIC. Inside Apple's apps, HEIC is seamless; iOS even auto-converts to JPG when you share to many apps, which is why some people never notice the format until a file won't open.

If the format is causing you grief, you have two clean options: convert the specific HEIC files to JPG as you need them, or change the camera setting so every new photo is a JPG from now on. The second one stops the problem at the source.

Convert HEIC in your browserDrop your .heic files and get JPG, PNG, or PDF — converted on your own device, nothing uploaded.

Last verified June 13, 2026.

Frequently asked questions

Since when does the iPhone use HEIC?

Since iOS 11, released in September 2017. From the iPhone 7 onward, capable devices default to the High Efficiency (HEIC) format unless you change the camera setting to Most Compatible.

Is HEIC bad? Should I be worried my photos are in HEIC?

No. HEIC is a fully-featured, high-quality format — often better than JPG at the same size. The only real downside is compatibility with non-Apple devices, which a quick conversion solves.

Does my iPhone already convert HEIC to JPG when I share?

Often, yes. iOS converts to JPG automatically when you share to many apps and services. But AirDrop, some email setups, and direct file transfers can send the raw .heic, which is when you hit the problem.

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