HEIF to JPG converter
HEIF is the standard; HEIC is Apple's file extension for it. If your camera or Android phone wrote a .heif file, this is the page for you — the underlying container is the same.
Drop HEIF files here
also accepts .heic and .hif from Canon cameras
HEIF, HEIC, HIF — what is the difference?
Very little, and it trips people up constantly. HEIF is the container standard, published by MPEG in 2015 as ISO/IEC 23008-12. HEIC is the file extension Apple chose for HEIF files whose image data is compressed with HEVC. .hif is Canon's extension for the same thing on their mirrorless bodies. All three open with the same decoder.
| Extension | Who writes it | What is inside |
|---|---|---|
| .heic | Apple — iPhone, iPad, macOS | HEIF container, HEVC image |
| .heif | Samsung, Sony, Android, generic tools | HEIF container, usually HEVC |
| .hif | Canon EOS R series | HEIF container, HEVC, 10-bit HDR |
| .avif | Browsers, modern encoders | Same container family, AV1 image |
The one meaningful split is at the bottom of that table: AVIF reuses the HEIF container design but swaps in the royalty-free AV1 codec. That is why AVIF ended up with browser support and HEIC did not. The longer explanation is here.
HEIF from cameras is different from HEIF from phones
If your .heif or .hif file came out of a Canon EOS R5, a Sony A7 IV or a Samsung flagship in its high-quality mode, it is probably 10-bit, and quite possibly HDR with a PQ or HLG transfer curve. JPG is 8-bit and SDR, so the conversion has to tone-map: the highlights get compressed and the colour is mapped down to sRGB.
Expect flatter-looking output from HDR sources. A 10-bit HDR HEIF converted to JPG can look washed out or dull compared with the original, because a much wider brightness range has been folded into a narrower one. This is not a bug in the converter — it is the fundamental limit of the target format. For serious work, tone-map deliberately in Lightroom or Capture One rather than accepting a generic conversion.
Using the converter
Drop any mix of .heif, .heic and .hif files. Each is decoded,
rotated according to its orientation flag, and written as a JPG at your chosen quality. Multiple files
can be downloaded together as a ZIP. Nothing is uploaded — the decoder is a WebAssembly build running
in this tab, so the work is done by your own processor.
If a specific file fails, the most common cause is a container variant the browser decoder does not handle, usually a burst sequence or a proprietary vendor extension. Converting that file on the device that created it, or through the camera manufacturer's own software, will normally succeed.
Common questions
- Is HEIF the same as HEIC?
- For practical purposes they are one and the same. HEIF names the standard; Apple simply chose to write .heic on its own devices. Any decoder that handles one handles the other.
- Why does my Canon .hif file not open in Windows Photos?
- Windows needs the HEVC Video Extensions codec before it can read the image data inside a HEIF container, whatever the extension. Canon's own Digital Photo Professional reads .hif directly, and the converter on this page reads it without any codec installed.
- Will 10-bit HDR detail survive conversion to JPG?
- No. JPG is limited to 8 bits per channel and standard dynamic range, so a 10-bit HDR source has to be tone-mapped down. Expect somewhat flatter highlights. Converting to PNG preserves 8-bit output losslessly but does not recover the extra bit depth either.
- Do Android phones save photos as HEIF?
- Some do, as an option rather than a default. Samsung Galaxy phones offer it under Camera settings as a high-efficiency mode, and several other manufacturers have followed. Most Android phones still write JPG out of the box.