Convert HEIC to PNG
PNG is the right target when the photo is going to be edited, layered, or submitted somewhere that specifies a lossless format. If you just want the iPhone photo to open on a laptop, JPG produces a file a tenth of the size that opens in the same places — and this page will keep saying so.
Use this without the search next time. Prathom Workbench puts Prathom's tools in your toolbar.
Add to Chrome — freeDrop your HEIC file here, or click to browse
Up to 50 MB. Deleted automatically after 30 minutes.
What it does
- Lossless output for editing and submission
- Full resolution preserved
- Orientation applied so photos are the right way up
- Considerably larger than the HEIC, inherently
How to use HEIC to PNG
- 1
Add the HEIC
Photos from an iPhone or iPad, which shoots HEIC by default. If you have several, convert the ones that are actually going to be edited rather than the whole camera roll — the output files are large.
- 2
Convert
Decoding runs on our server using ImageMagick's HEIF support. Browsers cannot read HEIC, so this cannot be done locally.
- 3
Consider JPG instead
If the goal was simply to open the file, stop here and use our HEIC to JPG tool instead. It opens in exactly the same software and produces a file a fraction of this size. PNG earns its place only when lossless matters.
How it works
The HEIC is decoded on our server by ImageMagick, built with HEIF support, and written out as PNG. Orientation from the file's metadata is applied to the pixels so the photo does not arrive rotated.
It cannot run in your browser. No browser ships a HEIC decoder — Safari can display them on Apple platforms through the operating system, which is not the same thing and does not help a web page.
The honest recommendation
Most people who search for a HEIC converter want the photo to open on a Windows laptop or in software that refuses it. For that, JPG is the better target, and it is not close: a tenth of the size, identical compatibility, and a quality difference you would need to go looking for.
PNG is worth its size in a narrower set of cases:
The photo is going to be edited. Retouching means opening, adjusting and saving repeatedly. Each save of a lossy format re-compresses everything including the previous round's artifacts, and the damage accumulates. A lossless working copy stops that.
It is being composited. Anything with a transparent background, or a layer in a larger design, needs a format with an alpha channel.
Something specified lossless. Some submission systems and print workflows do, and PNG is one of the two formats they always accept.
It is being cropped hard. Enlarging a small region exaggerates compression artifacts, so starting lossless helps.
Outside those, the PNG is a much larger file that looks the same.
What PNG cannot fix
The HEIC was already lossy. Apple's default camera setting compresses at capture, discarding detail before the file ever exists, and nothing recovers it.
So the PNG is a lossless copy of a lossy original — perfectly faithful to what the phone produced, and no closer to what the sensor saw. The only way to work from something better is to shoot in ProRAW or to change the camera setting to Most Compatible, which makes the phone save JPEGs instead. Neither helps with photos already taken.
A note on the file sizes
A modern iPhone photo is around 4000 by 3000 pixels. Stored losslessly in PNG that is roughly 20 MB per image, which adds up fast: a hundred converted photos is two gigabytes.
If you are converting a batch to get them off the phone and onto a computer, the batch almost certainly wants JPG. Convert the handful you intend to work on to PNG, and leave the rest.
Examples
A photo headed for retouching
Ten times larger and worth it, in this one case. Editing a photograph means saving it repeatedly, and each save of a lossy format compounds the damage. Working from a lossless copy means only the original compression ever affected the image.
A photo someone just wants to see
Ten times larger for nothing. The same photo as JPG would be around 2 MB and would open in precisely the same applications. This is the case where PNG is the wrong answer, and it is the more common of the two.
Frequently asked questions
Should I convert to PNG or JPG?
JPG for almost everything: viewing, sharing, uploading, emailing, printing from a normal service. It is roughly a tenth of the size and opens in the same software. PNG only when the file will be edited and re-saved several times, or when something specifies a lossless format. The default answer for an iPhone photo is JPG.
Does PNG give me better quality than JPG here?
Not better than the HEIC, which is the ceiling. HEIC is itself lossy, so detail was already discarded when the phone saved it, and PNG faithfully preserves whatever survived. Against a JPG conversion the difference is real but small — a single JPG save at high quality is close to invisible. The advantage of PNG shows up over repeated saves, not on the first one.
Why is the PNG ten times bigger than the HEIC?
Because HEIC is a modern lossy codec and PNG is lossless. HEIC stores a compact set of instructions for reconstructing something that looks like the photograph; PNG stores the resulting pixels exactly. On a photograph, where every pixel differs slightly from its neighbors, lossless compression has very little to work with.
Is the photo metadata kept?
Orientation is applied to the pixels, so the image is the right way up wherever it opens rather than depending on a tag being honored. Other metadata — capture date, camera settings, GPS location — is not carried into the PNG. If any of that matters, keep the HEIC originals; the phone's copy is the archive, and this output is a working file.