HEIC vs JPG: which photo format should you use?
The HEIC vs JPG question comes up the moment an iPhone photo refuses to open somewhere. Both formats store photos, but they were designed 25 years apart and make very different trade-offs. This guide compares them on the things that matter in practice: file size, quality, color, transparency, editing and, above all, where each one actually works.
Two formats from different eras
JPG (or JPEG) was standardised in 1992 and became the default photo format of the web, digital cameras and phones. Almost every device, program and website made since then can open it, which is its biggest strength.
HEIC is Apple’s name for HEIF files whose images are compressed with HEVC, the codec behind much 4K video. Apple made it the default camera format with iOS 11 in 2017, and many Android phones and cameras can save HEIF too. It packs modern compression and features into a container that can hold more than one image.
File size and compression
The headline difference is size. A HEIC photo is typically around half the size of a JPG of similar visual quality. On a phone with tens of thousands of pictures, that is many gigabytes of storage and a lot less iCloud space.
Both formats are lossy: they throw away detail the eye is unlikely to notice. When pushed too far, they fail in different ways. A heavily compressed JPG shows blocky squares and ringing around edges, while HEIC tends to smooth fine textures into a soft, slightly painted look. At the settings phones actually use, both look clean.
Color depth, HDR and color profiles
JPG stores 8 bits per color channel, about 16.7 million colors. HEIC can store 10 bits or more, which gives smoother gradients in skies and shadows and leaves more room for editing before banding appears.
Recent iPhones also store HDR information with many photos, so bright highlights such as the sun or a lamp can glow on an HDR screen. Newer JPG files can carry similar HDR data, but support is patchy. When you convert a HEIC to a standard JPG, including with our converter, you get an ordinary 8-bit image: it looks right on normal screens, but the extra HDR brightness is not carried over.
Both formats can embed a color profile. iPhone photos use the wide Display P3 color space, and as long as that profile is kept in the converted file, colors look the same as on the phone. If it is dropped, reds and greens can look dull.
Transparency, depth and multiple images
HEIC can hold things a JPG simply cannot. It supports transparent backgrounds, which iOS uses for stickers and cut-outs lifted from photos. It can store a depth map alongside a Portrait mode photo so the blur can be adjusted later, and it can hold several images in one file.
JPG has none of this. It has no transparency at all, so a cut-out converted to JPG gets a solid background, usually white. If you need to keep a transparent background, convert to PNG instead.
Live Photos are a separate case: the still is a HEIC (or JPG) file and the motion is a short video file stored next to it, so neither format holds the movement on its own.
Compatibility: where each format works
This is where JPG wins outright. At the time of writing, HEIC support looks roughly like this:
- iPhone, iPad and Mac: full support, built in.
- Android: most phones from recent years can view HEIC in Google Photos and many gallery apps, but some apps and older devices cannot.
- Windows: needs the HEIF and the paid HEVC extensions from the Microsoft Store.
- Browsers: Safari displays HEIC; Chrome and Firefox generally do not, so websites rarely accept it.
- Online forms, print shops, office software and older photo frames: often JPG and PNG only.
JPG, by contrast, opens practically everywhere. That is why converting is the usual answer whenever a HEIC photo leaves the Apple world.
Editing and re-saving
Every time you save a JPG, it is compressed again and loses a little more detail. A few saves are harmless, but repeatedly editing and re-saving the same JPG eventually shows. For work that needs many rounds of editing, save to a lossless format such as PNG or TIFF and export a JPG only at the end.
HEIC has the same lossy behaviour, but its higher bit depth gives editors more headroom for exposure and color changes. In practice, editing support outside Apple’s apps is still limited, so many people convert to JPG or PNG before editing on Windows.
When to use which
- Keep HEIC on your iPhone and Mac: it saves space and keeps HDR and depth data.
- Use JPG for sharing, email, uploads, printing and anyone outside the Apple ecosystem.
- Use PNG for cut-outs with transparent backgrounds, screenshots and images you will keep editing.
- Keep the HEIC originals as your archive, and convert copies when you need them.
Our converter covers both cases from one page: choose JPG at 90% quality for sharing, or PNG when you need transparency or lossless output. It runs in the browser and keeps the color profile, so the copies look like the originals.