How to open iPhone HEIC photos on Windows

Turn HEIC photos into JPGs that open everywhere, for free, and stop your iPhone from making them in the first place.

Updated November 2026 · by the Clipabay team

You copy your iPhone photos to a Windows PC and they all end in .HEIC, and Photos says it can't open them. HEIC is the format iPhones use to save space. Windows can open it, but only with extra extensions from the Microsoft Store, and one of them costs money. The quickest free fix is to turn the photos into JPG.

Convert HEIC to JPG

Convert HEIC to JPG on Windows, free

1. Open clipabay.com/heic-to-jpg in Chrome, Edge or Firefox.
2. Choose your HEIC photos, or drag a whole selection in at once.
3. Wait a moment while they convert. They stay full size and high quality.
4. Download them one by one, or all together as a zip.

Your photos are converted inside your browser, so private pictures are never uploaded anywhere.

Stop it happening next time

Two settings on your iPhone make sure you get JPGs from now on:

• Settings › Camera › Formats › Most Compatible. New photos are saved as JPG. They take up more space on your phone.
• Settings › Apps › Photos › Transfer to Mac or PC › Automatic. Your iPhone keeps HEIC, but converts photos to JPG when you copy them to a computer with a cable.

Or open HEIC in Windows itself

If you'd rather keep HEIC files, search the Microsoft Store for HEIF Image Extensions. On many PCs, Windows also needs HEVC Video Extensions to show HEIC photos, which is a small paid app. After installing them, HEIC files open in Photos like any other picture.

Related: convert iPhone videos (MOV) to MP4 and make photos smaller.

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