Convert HEIC to AVIF
These two formats are siblings. Same container, same generation of compression, similar results on the same photograph. What separates them is not engineering — it is that one carries patent licensing and the other does not, and that single difference decided which one the web adopted.
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Add to Chrome — freeDrop your HEIC file here, or click to browse
Up to 50 MB. Deleted automatically after 30 minutes.
What it does
- Comparable file size, with no licensing attached
- Displays in every current browser, which HEIC never will
- Keeps full color depth rather than dropping to 8-bit
- No watermark and no sign-up
How to use HEIC to AVIF
- 1
Add the HEIC
Straight from an iPhone or a photo library export. Files named .heif behave identically — the extension differs, the contents do not.
- 2
Convert
The HEVC bitstream is decoded and re-encoded as AV1 on our server. This is the slowest image conversion here, because AV1 encoding is genuinely expensive.
- 3
Use it anywhere on the web
Serve it directly. Every current browser decodes AVIF, so the fallback markup that newer formats used to require is no longer necessary.
How it works
The HEIC is decoded by ImageMagick, which reads the HEVC bitstream, and the pixels are re-encoded as AV1 inside an AVIF container.
Both files look nearly identical to a program inspecting their structure — the same box layout inherited from MP4, differing in the brand field near the start and in which codec the payload uses. That shared ancestry is why a tool can report a file as HEIF and then fail to decode it: reading the container and decoding the video stream inside are separate capabilities.
The one difference that mattered
HEIC arrived first and Apple made it the iPhone camera default in 2017, which instantly created hundreds of millions of files a year in a format no browser could open.
AVIF arrived a few years later from the Alliance for Open Media, whose entire purpose was a codec with no royalty obligations. Browsers shipped support within a couple of years — the same browsers that had declined HEVC for a decade.
The lesson is not about compression ratios. Two formats of near-identical capability had completely different fates, and the deciding factor was whether using them required a license.
Choosing between AVIF and WebP
Both are royalty-free and both work everywhere that matters, so the choice comes down to specifics.
AVIF compresses photographs better, sometimes substantially, and handles more than eight bits per channel — which matters for skies, sunsets and anything with a long smooth gradient.
WebP encodes far faster and has a longer support history in older software outside the browser.
For a photo gallery where page weight dominates, AVIF. For a general-purpose file that might be opened by anything, WebP. For a photograph currently sitting in HEIC, AVIF is the closer relative and the smaller step.
What does not come across
Live Photos. The paired video has nowhere to live in a still image format. The frame converts; the motion does not.
Depth maps and portrait masks. Extra layers the camera writes into the HEIF container, used for background blur after the fact. They are dropped, so the photograph arrives as it currently appears rather than as something re-editable.
Burst sequences. A HEIC holding several images gives up its primary one.
For any of those, the HEIC is the file that holds the extra information, and it should be kept rather than replaced.
Examples
A phone photograph for a web gallery
Roughly comparable, which is the expected result — the codecs are close in capability. The gain is not compression, it is that the file now displays in a browser instead of prompting a download. Resize before publishing; four thousand pixels is far past what any layout uses.
A photograph with wide dynamic range
Both formats carry more than eight bits per channel, so the gradient stays smooth. Converting the same image to JPEG would force it to 8-bit and band the sky visibly — the specific case where the older format cannot follow.
Frequently asked questions
Are AVIF and HEIC really that similar?
Structurally, yes. Both store an image inside the ISO base media container — the MP4 family — using a still frame from a video codec. HEIC uses HEVC and AVIF uses AV1. They were designed a few years apart to do the same job, and on most photographs they produce comparable files at comparable quality.
Then why does only one work in browsers?
Licensing. HEVC is covered by patent pools requiring royalties, which made shipping a decoder an expensive legal commitment for browser vendors. AV1 was developed by an industry alliance specifically to be royalty-free, and browsers adopted it quickly because doing so cost them nothing. The technical merits barely entered into it.
Is this conversion lossy?
Yes. Both formats are lossy, so the image is decoded and compressed a second time, and a small amount of quality goes each round trip. It is not visible at sensible quality settings on a photograph, but it is real — convert from your original rather than from a file that has already been through several conversions.
Why is this slower than other conversions?
Because AV1 encoding is computationally expensive by design. The codec buys its compression with a great deal of analysis, which is a good trade for a file served thousands of times and a noticeable wait when you are standing there watching a progress bar.