How to convert HEIC to JPG on Mac
Preview converts HEIC files one at a time, which is brutal when you've got hundreds of iPhone photos. Here's a faster way to batch-convert on a Mac, right in Safari.
Why a Mac reads HEIC when Windows can't
Your Mac shows HEIC files just fine. Preview, Photos, Finder and Safari all read them, and Quick Look previews them from the desktop. macOS has decoded HEIC since High Sierra in 2017.
The reason is licensing, not engineering. HEIC files from an iPhone use HEVC compression, which is covered by a large patent pool. Apple sells the hardware and absorbs those royalties into the price of the machine, so it can ship the decoder. Microsoft cannot do that on hardware it does not sell, which is why the same file opens instantly on a Mac and refuses to open on a PC.
So on macOS, reading HEIC is never the problem. Getting a folder of them out as JPG is.
Batch conversion in Safari (fastest)
Open Safari, go to the HEIC to JPG converter, and drag a whole folder of photos onto the page. Up to 200 at once, converted in seconds, downloaded as one ZIP.
Because macOS already decodes HEIC, conversions on a Mac are quick, there is nothing to install and no codec to fetch. The work happens on your machine; the photos are never uploaded, and you can confirm that by turning off Wi-Fi after the page loads and converting anyway.
Filenames survive the trip, so IMG_4821.HEIC comes back as IMG_4821.jpg and a large batch stays in an order you recognise.
What macOS gives you built in, and where it runs out
It is worth being straight about this, because Preview is more capable than it is usually given credit for. Select several HEIC files in Finder, open them together in Preview, select all in the sidebar, then File → Export Selected Images and choose JPEG. That is a genuine batch export, and for twenty or thirty photos it is perfectly good.
Where it runs out is scale and repetition. Preview loads every selected image into memory first, so a few hundred large photos is slow and can beachball on an older Mac. The quality slider has no numeric value, so results are hard to reproduce. And it is a multi-step manual dance every single time.
Photos is fiddlier still, mainly because its export menu is genuinely confusing: File → Export → Export Photos re-encodes and lets you pick JPEG, while Export Unmodified Original gives you the untouched HEIC, which is the opposite of what most people want and the reason so many 'exports' come out as HEIC anyway.
There is also sips, the command-line tool built into macOS, which will happily convert a whole folder in one line. It is genuinely capable, and genuinely a command-line tool: no preview, no undo, and it overwrites in place unless you tell it not to.
For one file, open Terminal and run sips -s format jpeg IMG_4821.HEIC --out IMG_4821.jpg. For every HEIC file in the current folder: for f in *.HEIC; do sips -s format jpeg "$f" --out "${f%.HEIC}.jpg"; done. The --out flag writes a new file, which is what keeps your originals untouched; leave it off and sips converts each file in place, same filename, JPEG bytes inside. Add -s formatOptions 85 before the filename to set output quality (0 to 100) if the default is not what you want.
All of which is to say the built-in options work, at small scale, if you do not mind the ceremony. Dragging the folder onto a page and getting a ZIP back is the same job with none of it.
Handling a big library
If you are converting a photo library rather than a handful of shots, work in batches of around 200 and keep the ZIPs separate, it is far easier to spot a missing batch than a missing file among thousands.
Nothing is modified in place. Your originals stay exactly where they are, in Photos or in Finder, and the JPGs arrive as new files in Downloads. That means a conversion run is never destructive and you can redo it if you change your mind about quality.
Quick questions
Does macOS have a built-in HEIC converter?
Yes. Preview can export several images to JPEG at once, and sips does it from the command line. Both work well at small scale; both get slow and manual for hundreds of files.
Will my Mac's photos lose quality?
No, at 92% quality the JPG output looks identical unless you pixel-peep at 400%. Your resolution is unchanged.
Is it free?
Yes, completely free, no account, no watermark, no daily limit.
Why does my Mac open HEIC when my PC won't?
macOS ships an HEVC decoder because Apple licenses it as part of the hardware. Windows does not include one, which is why the same file fails there.
Why did my Photos export come out as HEIC again?
You most likely used Export Unmodified Original, which hands back the untouched file. Use File → Export → Export Photos and pick JPEG.
Do I need Safari, or will Chrome work?
Either works on a Mac. Safari is simply what most people already have open.
Are my photos uploaded anywhere?
No. Conversion runs on your Mac inside the browser tab. Disconnect from Wi-Fi after the page loads and it still works.
Does converting change the originals?
No. Originals stay untouched and the JPGs arrive as new files in Downloads.
Converters
The converter on this page handles every conversion this guide talks about.