How to Convert Multiple iPhone HEIC Photos to JPG at Once

You copy a folder of holiday photos from your iPhone to a laptop, go to upload them to a print shop, and the site refuses every one. The files end in .HEIC. Your Windows PC shows blank thumbnails, the photo editor you have used for years will not open them, and converting forty photos one by one is not how you want to spend your evening.

You do not have to. Converting a whole batch of HEIC photos to JPG takes a couple of minutes once you know the steps, and you can do it without installing anything.

Why iPhone photos arrive as HEIC

Since iOS 11 in 2017, iPhones have saved photos in HEIF, the High Efficiency Image File Format, by default. Apple uses the .heic extension for these files because the image data inside is compressed with HEVC, the same codec behind H.265 video. The appeal is storage: a HEIC photo usually needs noticeably less space than a JPG of similar visual quality, which adds up quickly on a phone holding thousands of pictures.

HEIC also stores things JPG cannot. It can hold 10-bit colour, the extra brightness information used for HDR display, Portrait-mode depth maps and several related images in one file. On Apple devices, all of that works invisibly.

The trouble starts when the photos leave Apple’s world. JPG has been the universal photo format for about thirty years; almost every device, website and program reads it. HEIC support is patchier:

• Windows can display HEIC only with Microsoft’s HEIF and HEVC extensions installed. Many PCs have neither, so the Photos app shows an error or asks you to get a codec from the Microsoft Store.
• Upload forms for print shops, job applications, visa and government portals, marketplaces and older website builders often accept only JPG or PNG.
• Office and editing software, especially older versions, may refuse to insert or open HEIC images.
• Web browsers generally cannot display a HEIC image inside a web page, so a HEIC uploaded to a site often appears broken.

iOS often converts photos automatically when you email them or share them to an app that does not understand HEIC. That is why the problem tends to appear later, once the originals have landed on a computer, a USB drive or a cloud folder.

Before you convert: do you need to?

Converting is the right move when you already have HEIC files that something refuses. It is worth a moment’s thought first, because the best fix depends on where you are:

• You need JPGs from now on. On the iPhone, go to Settings → Camera → Formats and choose Most Compatible. New photos will be JPGs. They take more space, and a few features, including 48-megapixel HEIF Max photos, require High Efficiency.
• You copy photos to a computer by cable. In Settings → Photos, set Transfer to Mac or PC to Automatic, and the iPhone converts photos to a compatible format during the transfer. Keep Originals copies the HEIC files unchanged.
• You already have a folder of HEIC files. Neither setting changes existing photos. This is where a batch converter earns its keep.

If you are archiving photos in Apple Photos or iCloud, keep the HEIC originals. Convert copies for the places that need JPG; do not replace your library.

How to convert multiple HEIC photos to JPG in your browser

A browser-based batch converter works on Windows, Mac, Chromebook and phones without installing software. Here is the workflow with the CachePlex converter; other good tools follow a similar pattern.

1. Gather the originals in one folder

Put the HEIC files somewhere you can select them together, such as your Downloads folder or a new folder on the desktop. If they come from iCloud on Windows or from a synced cloud drive, make sure the files are actually downloaded. Cloud apps sometimes show online-only placeholders that look like photos but contain no data until opened.

2. Select them all at once

Open the converter, click the drop area, and in the file picker press Ctrl + A on Windows or Cmd + A on a Mac to select every file in the folder. You can also drag a selection straight from your file manager onto the page. Up to 50 photos fit in one batch; for more, run a second batch.

Before converting, the tool reads the first bytes of every file to see what it really is. Anything that is not a HEIC photo, such as a PNG, a video or an empty file, is listed with a plain reason instead of failing halfway through the batch.

3. Choose a quality

Leave it on High (90) unless you have a reason not to. The next section explains the trade-offs in detail.

4. Convert and watch the progress

Press Convert. The first time, the page downloads the decoder itself (about 3 MB, once per visit), then processes the photos one after another. Each row turns green with its pixel size and before-and-after file size, and anything that fails turns red with an explanation. A recent laptop typically handles a 12-megapixel photo in one to a few seconds; phones take longer.

5. Download and check

Download individual photos with their JPG buttons, or press Download as ZIP for the whole batch. Unzip the file and open a few of the JPGs at full size, especially photos with fine detail such as foliage, hair or text. If you want a different quality, choose it and press Convert again; the tool re-exports the batch from the originals, not from the JPGs it already made.

Throughout all of this, your HEIC files are not modified, moved or deleted. A web page can only read the files you choose. The JPGs are new copies.

Other ways to batch convert HEIC

A browser tool is the quickest route on a PC or when you do not want to install anything. If you are on Apple hardware, the built-in apps are also worth knowing:

If keeping the capture date and location matters, as it does for a family archive sorted by date, the Mac apps are the better choice, because they are designed to carry that metadata across. For getting a batch of photos accepted by a website today, a browser converter is usually faster.

Output quality and file size: choosing the right setting

JPG quality is a sliding scale between file size and fine detail. Higher numbers keep more detail and produce bigger files. The number is not a percentage of the original quality; it is an encoder setting, and the useful range for photos is roughly 70 to 95.

To show what the settings do in practice, we converted three iPhone photos of 7 to 12 megapixels at each level and compared the JPGs with the original HEIC files:

Two things stand out. First, a JPG at a high setting is bigger than the HEIC it came from. That is expected: HEVC is a more efficient compression method, so JPG needs more bytes for the same picture. Do not be alarmed when a 40 MB folder of HEIC photos becomes 50 MB of JPGs. Second, dropping to 80 brings the size below the HEIC, and for most uses you will not see the difference.

Some practical rules:

• Always convert from the HEIC original. Every JPG save discards a little information. Converting a JPG again at a lower quality compounds the loss.
• For a website, convert first and optimise second. Convert at 90, then resize and compress for the page. The Image Compressor lets you compare the result side by side, and the WebP Converter produces smaller files for the web once you have JPGs.
• Check the difficult photos. Skies, gradients, fine foliage and low-light noise reveal compression first. If those look right, the rest of the batch will too.

What a JPG cannot carry over

JPG is a simpler format, so a few things are lost in any HEIC-to-JPG conversion. Knowing them helps you decide what to keep:

• HDR brightness. Recent iPhones store extra information that makes highlights brighter on HDR screens. A standard JPG is an ordinary 8-bit image, so the photo looks as it would on a normal screen.
• Depth maps and Live Photo motion. Portrait-mode depth data is not transferred, and the motion part of a Live Photo lives in a separate video file anyway. You get the still image.
• Wide colour. iPhones capture in the Display P3 colour range, which is wider than the standard sRGB most JPGs use. With browser-based conversion, very saturated reds, oranges and greens can look slightly more muted than in Apple Photos. Most photos look the same.

What happens to dates, location and other metadata

Your photos carry EXIF metadata: the date and time they were taken, the camera and lens settings, and often the GPS location. When a browser converts a photo, it re-draws the image and saves a fresh JPG, and that JPG does not include the original EXIF data.

That cuts both ways. Removing location data is useful when you are about to post photos publicly or send them to people you do not know well. But photo libraries that sort by date taken will fall back to the file date. If you are importing converted photos into a long-term archive and the capture date matters, keep the HEIC originals alongside the JPGs, or use a converter that explicitly copies metadata, such as the Mac Photos export.

The CachePlex converter does keep each file’s original modified date inside the ZIP, which helps when you sort unzipped files by date in a file manager.

Common failures, and how to fix them

Most batches convert without a hitch. When something does go wrong, it is usually one of these:

“This file is incomplete”

The file ends before its own image data does. The cause is almost always an interrupted download, a cloud sync that had not finished, or a cable transfer that was cut short. A decoder can still produce an image from a partial file, but it will be partly grey or garbled, which is why a careful converter flags it instead. Download or copy the photo again.

“Already a JPG” for a file named .heic

Some transfers convert photos to JPG but keep the original name. There is nothing to convert, and re-compressing it would only lose quality. A good converter copies these files as they are and gives them a .jpg name.

Videos, Live Photos and screenshots in the selection

A folder exported from a phone often contains .MOV files next to the photos. These are Live Photo motion clips or videos, not stills, and a photo converter will skip them. Screenshots are usually PNG files and need no conversion.

AVIF files

AVIF is a different modern format that also uses the HEIF container. It is not the same as an iPhone HEIC, and HEIC-to-JPG tools often do not handle it. If a file is flagged as AVIF, use a converter that supports that format specifically.

The tab slows down or reloads on a phone

Decoding a high-resolution photo needs a lot of memory for a moment. Phones have far less than laptops, so very large batches of 48-megapixel images can overwhelm a mobile browser. Convert in smaller batches, close other tabs, or use a computer for big jobs.

Photos picked on an iPhone come through as JPG

Depending on the iOS version and how you choose them, Safari may hand a web page compatible JPG copies instead of the original HEIC files. If the converter reports that your files are already JPGs, that is what happened, and you already have what you need.

Keep your library tidy after converting

A few habits make batch conversion painless next time:

1. Keep originals and converted copies in separate folders, for example Trip 2026 – originals and Trip 2026 – JPG. Mixing them makes it easy to upload the wrong file or delete the only full-quality copy.
2. Keep the names. Converted files that share their base name with the originals (IMG_4127.HEIC and IMG_4127.jpg) are easy to match later.
3. Convert only what you need. If a website accepts five photos, convert five. Your library stays in the space-saving format.
4. Delete originals only after checking. Open a sample of the JPGs before you remove anything.

Frequently asked questions

Does converting HEIC to JPG reduce quality?

Slightly, because JPG is a lossy format. At quality 90 or 95 the difference is very hard to see at normal viewing sizes. The bigger practical losses are metadata, HDR brightness and depth data, as explained above.

Is it safe to use an online HEIC converter for private photos?

It depends on where the conversion happens. Many online converters upload your photos to a server. The CachePlex converter decodes them inside your browser, and the only thing sent to our server is the number of photos in a batch, used for the daily free limit. Whichever tool you choose, check how it handles your files before uploading anything personal.

How many photos can I convert at once?

With the CachePlex converter, up to 50 per batch and 10 batches a day for free. Desktop apps such as Preview have no fixed limit, but very large batches still take time.

The bottom line

HEIC is a good format for storing photos on Apple devices and an awkward one almost everywhere else. When you need JPGs, convert the whole set in one batch from the originals, use quality 90 unless you have a reason to change it, and keep the HEIC files until you have checked the results. If you convert often, change the iPhone’s camera or transfer settings so future photos arrive in the format you need.