HEIC is a relatively new file format for images and many programs don’t fully support it. Here’s how to convert it to a JPEG file on Windows 11.
As technology evolves, we’ll sometimes run into problems using certain files or programs. For example, you might have run into HEIC or HEIF images, which are a relatively new format and codec for images, respectively. HEIF stands for High-Efficiency Image Format, and it allows images to be stored with higher quality while taking up less space on your drive, so it’s a great evolution. However, because it’s newer, many programs you already use don’t properly support it, making it harder to edit or share them.
Thankfully, it’s pretty easy to convert images from one format to another and make them easier to use with your preferred programs. If you’re looking for a way to convert HEIC (with a .heic or .heif extension) images to JPEG (.jpeg or .jpg) on Windows 11, we’ve got you covered.
Convert HEIC images using the Photos app
If you only want to convert one or a few images, you can do it fairly easily using the Photos app built into Windows 11. For this to work, you’ll need to install HEIF Image Extensions. It should be installed by default on Windows 11, especially if you have a new laptop, but you can download it from the Microsoft Store if you don’t have it. This enables native support for HEIF files on Windows 11, including the built-in Photos app.
Once that’s done, you can follow these steps:
- Open the image you want to convert using the Photos app.
- Click the … (ellipsis) icon in the menu bar at the top.
- Choose Save as.
- Change the Save as type field to .jpg or .jpeg.
- Click Save.
Your image will now be saved in a JPEG format, so you can use it in more apps that may not have been updated with support for HEIC yet.
Convert HEIC images online
If you need to convert more than a couple of images, doing the process above may take too long. Thankfully, some online tools can convert these files for you, though they do have some usage limits. A great option is FreeConvert, a conversion website that can handle all kinds of files. Here’s how to use it:
- Open the FreeConvert HEIC to JPG converter.
- Click Choose Files.
- Select all the files you want to convert. On the free plan, you can typically only convert up to 25 files per day.
- Ensure that the Output option is set to JPG, or, if you chose multiple files, make sure the Convert All to option is set to JPG.
- Click the Convert button.
- Only five files are converted at a time, so you may need to click Convert again until all the files are done.
- Click Download all to download the converted images as a .zip file. Alternatively, you can click Download for each image to download them individually.
- If you downloaded the .zip file, extract it to get your JPG images.
Convert HEIC images in bulk using an app
If you’d rather have a solution you can use offline without limitations, many apps can convert images to and from a wide range of formats. For this example, we’ll use an app called HEIC Converter +, which you can download from the Microsoft Store. There are a lot of apps with similar names, and they all should work, but this is one of the most popular, and it has very good ratings. Here’s how to use it.
- Download HEIC Converter + from the Microsoft Store.
- Launch the app once it’s installed.
- Click Convert to JPG/PNG in the menu at the top.
- Click the Add files button or Add folder to convert all the images in a given folder.
- Choose the files you want to convert and click Open.
- You can change the output location and the quality of the converted images (it’s set to 100% by default).
- Click Convert.
- Once the process is finished, the app will automatically open File Explorer in your selected output location.
You now have all of your images converted to JPEG, and they’re ready to use in most apps. As HEIC files become more common, most apps should start enabling support natively, but if you need a solution until that happens, all of these are great options.
We have a few more guides you might be interested in if you’re a Windows 11 user, such as how to open RAR files if you’ve ever run into problems with those.