What is an HEIC file, and how to open one anywhere

What does HEIC stand for?

Apple’s own glossary spells it out as High Efficiency Image Container. In the standard behind it, heic is a brand: the label a file carries when its pictures are compressed with HEVC, also called H.265. The top search results print three other expansions (Coding, File and Codec), and all four describe the same file. The line that matters: a HEIC is a HEIF file with HEVC pictures inside.

What is the HEIC format, and how is it different from HEIF?

HEIF is the container. MPEG wrote it as ISO/IEC 23008-12, also called MPEG-H Part 12, and first published it in 2017. It stores single pictures, sequences of them and their metadata in one file built on the ISO Base Media File Format. HEIF does not fix the codec. A HEIC is the HEIF file whose pictures are HEVC, the kind every iPhone saves.

The same box can hold other codecs. Microsoft’s HEIF Image Extension listing notes that an .avif file is a HEIF image too, with AV1 pictures inside. IANA, which registers file types, lists the extensions:

Why do iPhones save photos as HEIC?

To save space. Apple says HEIF and HEVC “use less storage space on your devices and iCloud Photos, while preserving the same visual quality” (Apple’s support note). When iOS 11 brought the format in 2017, Apple put the gain at “up to two times compression”. WebKit, adding HEIC to Safari 17, said a HEIC “can take up about half the space of an equivalent-quality JPEG file.” The HEIF reference site’s own test found that JPEG needs on average 2.39 times the file size of HEVC for the same measured quality.

Every iPhone from the iPhone 7 on shoots HEIC, and so do recent iPads and Apple Vision Pro. The switch is in Settings, Camera, Formats: High Efficiency saves HEIC, Most Compatible saves JPEG. Apple recommends High Efficiency.

Android makes HEIC too. Android 9 added HEIF encoding, and Android 10 cameras save HEIC when the phone has a hardware HEVC encoder. Samsung calls the option High efficiency pictures and warns on the switch itself: “Some apps and websites do not support HEIF pictures.”

What are HEIC files made of?

More than one picture. We read the boxes of a real photo from an iPhone 12 Pro, 2268 × 4032 pixels and 1,956.0 KB, the way a HEIF reader does. It holds 57 items. The photo you see is not one picture: it is 40 tiles of 512 × 512 pixels, each coded with HEVC on its own and joined by a grid.

• The photo: 40 tiles of 512 × 512 joined by a grid into 2268 × 4032, 8 bits a channel, in the Display P3 colour space.
• An HDR gain map: a second picture at 1134 × 2016, in 12 more tiles. Apple describes it as an 8-bit luminance map at a quarter of the photo’s resolution, which lets an HDR screen brighten the highlights.
• An Exif block with the capture details, and two more metadata items.
• No thumbnail. The format allows one; this file carries none.

What else the format can hold

The format allows more. Apple’s 2017 session on HEIF lists alpha and depth support, animation and bursts. A Portrait photo’s depth map rides along as its own monochrome HEVC picture, the same way the gain map does here.

Where the photo was taken

The Exif block can also carry where you were. When Location Services is on for the Camera, Apple says the coordinates “are embedded into each photo and video.” They travel with the file, along with the capture time and the phone model. Before you post a HEIC publicly, remove EXIF data from the copy.

How to open a HEIC file on any device

Apple devices open a HEIC directly, and so does Safari 17 or later. Windows needs two Microsoft Store extensions. Android reads it from version 8.0. Chrome, Edge and Firefox do not show it in any version.

How to open a HEIC file in Windows 11 and 10

Windows needs two things from the Microsoft Store. HEIF Image Extension is free and teaches Windows the container. The pictures inside a .heic are HEVC, and Microsoft’s own listing says HEVC Video Extensions “must be installed” to view them. That one costs $0.99 in the US Store, as does the HEIF and HEVC Media Extensions bundle, which holds both.

1. 1

   Check what is already installed

   Open Settings, Apps, Installed apps and search for HEVC. Some PCs come with a version named HEVC Video Extensions from Device Manufacturer.

2. 2

   Install HEIF Image Extension

   Search for it in the Microsoft Store. It is free, published by Microsoft.

3. 3

   Add HEVC Video Extensions if it is missing

   Buy it once, then open the photo in Photos again. Without it, Photos says "You need an extension to use this file."

On a Mac, iPhone or iPad

Nothing to install. Apple builds HEIF support into iOS 11 and later, iPadOS, visionOS and macOS High Sierra 10.13 and later. Photos, Preview and Quick Look open a HEIC like any other photo.

On Android and a Chromebook

Android has decoded HEIF files, .heic included, since Android 8.0, so a phone’s gallery can show them, and Google Photos backs them up. A Chromebook is the gap: Google’s list of the image files it opens names .bmp, .gif, .jpg, .jpeg, .png and .webp, and no HEIC. Upload the photo to Google Photos to view it there, or convert a copy.

In a web browser

Only Safari shows a HEIC, from Safari 17 in 2023. The caniuse tables list no support in any version of Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Samsung Internet, with the reason in their note: HEIC is “complex and expensive to license.” That is why so many upload forms refuse a HEIC. OneDrive’s website is the exception: it shows HEIF photos in any browser.

The copy that opens everywhere

Convert a copy to JPG. It opens on every device and in every form, and the HEIC stays as your original. HEIC to JPG converts a batch online on any device; the built-in routes on Windows, a Mac and an iPhone are in how to convert HEIC to JPG. Sending from the iPhone itself, tap Options on the share sheet and choose Most Compatible, and Apple says the files “may convert to JPEG or MOV.”

HEIC vs JPEG: which is better?

As the camera’s original, HEIC: fewer bytes at the same quality, with room for an HDR gain map and a depth map. As a file to send, JPEG, because it opens everywhere.

We ran the iPhone photo through our engine in every format. As a JPG at Auto it came out at 940.7 KB, 52% smaller than the HEIC. That looks like a contradiction of Apple, and it is not one. Apple compares the two codecs at the same quality. The phone saves its HEIC at a high quality and adds the gain map and the metadata. Auto picks the quality a screen needs and writes an 8-bit sRGB JPG with no gain map and no Exif.

The fairer measure of what HEVC saves is the lossless copy. Every pixel of the photo as a PNG at quality 100 weighs 11,731.3 KB, 6.0 times the HEIC. For an editing copy that keeps every pixel, set quality 100 in HEIC to PNG.

HEIF vs JPEG on a camera

Cameras shoot HEIF for the space and for the depth of colour. Sony’s α7 IV records “HEIF 4:2:0 10bit”, and its manual promises high quality at small file sizes, with a warning that some computers and software cannot view or edit HEIF. Our iPhone photo is 8-bit, so the 10-bit claims you read elsewhere belong to cameras like that one, not to every HEIC.