HEIC to PNG Converter

How to convert HEIC to PNG

1. Add your HEIC files. Drag them onto the drop panel, click it to browse your device, or use the folder link to convert an entire folder at once. Both .heic and.heif files are accepted.
2. They convert on your device. Each image is decoded by your own browser. No file is sent anywhere — which is why this still works with your Wi-Fi switched off.
3. Download PNGs, or one ZIP. Each finished file gets its own download button in the results panel beside the drop zone — no scrolling, it is all on one screen. Once two or more are done, a single Download ZIP button appears, and folder structure is preserved inside it.

Your photos never leave your device

This is the part worth being precise about, because it is the one claim most online converters cannot make. When you use CloudConvert, Convertio, FreeConvert, Zamzar or Adobe Express, your photograph is uploaded to a server, converted there, and stored for some period before deletion. That is simply how those tools are built.

Here, no file you select is ever transmitted. The converter is a WebAssembly build oflibheif, the same open-source decoder used by most Linux image software, compiled to run inside this browser tab. Your photo is read from disk into your browser's own memory, decoded there, and written back out as a PNG by your browser's canvas.

How to check this for yourself

Do not take our word for it. Open your browser's developer tools, switch to the Network tab, and convert a file. You will see the page's code and the decoder binary download once, and no request carrying your image at any point. For a stronger test: load this page, disconnect from the internet, and convert a file anyway. It works, because there is nothing to send.

What we do and don't collect

We do not receive your images, your filenames, or any information about them — not because we promise not to look, but because that data never reaches us. Like most websites we may measure aggregate page traffic. The privacy policy sets out the details.

Why is my PNG so much bigger than the HEIC?

This surprises nearly everyone, and almost no converter warns you about it in advance. It is not a fault, and it is not something any tool can avoid.

HEIC is a lossy format built on the HEVC video codec — it achieves small files by permanently discarding detail your eye is unlikely to miss. PNG is lossless: it stores every pixel exactly, and it was designed for graphics with flat colour, not for photographs full of noise and texture. Converting from one to the other means unpacking a heavily compressed photograph into a format that refuses to throw anything away.

The practical result, for a typical 12-megapixel iPhone photo:

Scaled up, a 200-photo camera roll of roughly 400 MB becomes about 5 GB of PNGs. If you are converting a whole roll to email or upload somewhere, that matters.

How to get smaller files

If size matters more to you than losslessness — and for ordinary camera photos it usually does — convert to JPG or WebP instead. You will get a file in the same range as the original HEIC with no visible difference. PNG is the right answer when you need exact pixels or transparency, which the next section explains.

HEIC vs PNG vs JPG: which should you actually use?

Most pages that offer this conversion simply sell you the conversion. Here is the honest version, because choosing the wrong target format wastes your time and disk space.

When PNG is the right choice

Choose PNG when the pixels must survive exactly: screenshots you will annotate, artwork with transparency, images heading into a design tool, or a system that specifically demands PNG. It is also the safest choice when you simply do not know what the receiving system will accept.

When JPG is the better answer

For an ordinary photograph of people, places or things, JPG is almost always the better target. Your HEIC was already lossy, so converting to PNG preserves compression artefacts at ten times the file size rather than restoring quality that was never there.

What changes when you convert

A HEIC file carries more than a picture. Some of it survives the trip to PNG and some cannot, and it is worth knowing which before you delete the originals.

EXIF, GPS and dates

Camera model, exposure settings, capture date and GPS coordinates live in metadata that is not carried into the PNG produced here. In practice this means the converted file is a plain image with no location attached, which is usually what people want when sharing. If you need that information kept, keep the original HEIC alongside the PNG.

Colour: Display P3 to sRGB

Every recent iPhone captures in Display P3, a wider range of colour than the sRGB space in which most images are displayed. Deeply saturated reds and greens sit outside sRGB entirely, so they are mapped to the nearest available colour during conversion. On a wide-gamut screen a vivid sunset may look very slightly flatter; on an ordinary monitor you will see no difference at all.

HDR and 10-bit photos

Newer iPhones record 10 bits per colour channel with HDR gain-map data, which is what makes highlights glow in the Photos app. The PNG here is standard 8-bit, and the gain map is not carried across. The picture is intact and correctly exposed — it simply looks like a normal photograph rather than an HDR one.

Transparency and alpha channels

PNG supports transparency, but a photograph from a camera has none to preserve — every pixel is opaque. Transparency only matters here if your HEIC came from a screenshot or an exported design asset that actually had a transparent background, in which case it is kept.

Live Photos, bursts and Portrait mode

A Live Photo is really two files: a still image and a short video stored beside it. Only the still converts; the motion is not part of the HEIC. Portrait photos store a separate depth map that lets Photos re-edit the background blur afterwards — PNG has nowhere to put it, so you get the picture with its blur already applied. Some HEIC files also contain more than one full-size image; this converter reads the one the file marks as primary, which is the image your Photos app displays.

Converting a whole camera roll at once

Batch conversion is the main job here, not a footnote. Select five hundred files, or drop a whole folder — the folder's structure is rebuilt inside the ZIP you download, so an organised camera roll stays organised.

There is no file-count limit and no size limit, and that is a direct consequence of the architecture rather than generosity. Server-based converters must meter usage because every conversion costs them processing time and bandwidth; that is why they impose daily quotas, maximum file sizes, batch caps and signup walls. Nothing is uploaded here, so there is nothing to meter. The practical limit is your own device's memory and patience.

Files are converted several at a time, using as many of your processor's cores as can be spared. How long a batch takes depends entirely on your device, because it is your own processor doing the work rather than a server — a recent laptop gets through a camera roll considerably faster than an older phone will. One damaged file will not stop the batch: it is marked as declined and the rest carry on.

Convert HEIC to PNG without a website

You do not need this site, and it is worth knowing the alternatives. If you convert HEIC files regularly, doing it locally is faster.

On a Mac

Open the file in Preview, then File → Export and choose PNG. For many files at once, select them all in Finder, right-click and choose Quick Actions → Convert Image. From Terminal, macOS has a converter built in:

sips -s format png photo.heic --out photo.png

On Windows 10 and 11

Windows cannot open HEIC out of the box. Installing the free HEIF Image Extensions from the Microsoft Store lets Photos display them, after which Save as offers PNG. Some systems also prompt for the paid HEVC Video Extensions; theWindows 11 guide explains why and how to avoid it.

On iPhone and iPad

The Shortcuts app can convert images without any third-party tool: create a shortcut using theConvert Image action set to PNG, and run it on anything in your camera roll.

For developers

ImageMagick and libheif both handle this from a terminal:

magick photo.heic photo.png
heif-convert photo.heic photo.png

In Python, pillow-heif registers HEIC support with Pillow directly.

Stop your iPhone saving photos as HEIC

If you keep running into this problem, fix it at the source. On your iPhone go toSettings → Camera → Formats and choose Most Compatible. Your phone will shoot JPG from then on, and nothing will need converting again.

The trade-off is real: HEIC files are roughly half the size of the equivalent JPG at the same quality, so you will use more storage. This also only affects photos taken from now on — every photo already in your library stays HEIC.

When HEIC files won't open at all

Why Windows can't read them

This is a licensing situation, not a bug. HEIC images are compressed with HEVC, a patented codec that carries per-device royalties. Rather than pay them on every Windows installation, Microsoft ships the decoder as a separate, sometimes paid, Store extension. Apple pays the licence for its own hardware, which is why the same file opens instantly on an iPhone and not at all on a PC.

Images that come out rotated

Rotation in a HEIC is recorded as an instruction inside the container rather than being applied to the pixels, and converters that ignore that instruction produce sideways images. The decoder here applies it, so your PNG should match what you saw on your phone.

Files this converter cannot read

A few genuinely will not convert: .heics image sequences, files that were truncated during download or transfer, and files renamed to .heic that were never HEIC to begin with. Any of these are marked as declined with the reason shown. Capitalisation never matters — .HEIC and .heic are treated identically.

How this compares to other HEIC converters

The meaningful difference between converters is not speed or interface, it is where your file is processed. Everything else follows from that one decision.

Because server-based services carry a real cost per conversion, their free tiers come with daily limits, maximum file sizes and account requirements, and those terms change over time — check their current terms rather than trusting any comparison table, including this one. What does not change is the architecture: if a converter uploads your file, it can meter you and it holds your photograph; if it does not, it cannot do either.

Frequently asked questions

Ready to convert your files?

Return to the converter and drop your HEIC files in. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is stored, and you will not be asked to create an account.