HEIC to PNG: Convert iPhone Photos Without Losing Quality

You AirDropped a photo off your iPhone, dropped it into Photoshop, Figma or some line-of-business Windows app, and got a shrug: unsupported file type. That's HEIC (High Efficiency Image Container), Apple's default since iOS 11. It's a great storage format and a terrible interchange format.

Converting HEIC to PNG fixes that in seconds, and unlike JPG it keeps the door open for transparency and lossless re-saving. The trade-off: the file gets a lot bigger, and a few iPhone-specific extras don't survive the trip. Here's when PNG is the right call, and three concrete ways to do it.

When PNG beats JPG as the HEIC target

JPG is the default advice for HEIC, and for a photo you're emailing or uploading, it's fine. Choose PNG instead when one of these is true:

• You're going to edit it. PNG is lossless, so IMG_4821.png survives twenty open-edit-save cycles in Photoshop or GIMP with zero added artifacts. A JPG re-compresses every time you hit save.
• You need transparency later. A HEIC transparent PNG isn't something the camera produces (iPhone photos are fully opaque), but if you're about to cut out a product, a pet or a signature, you need an alpha channel waiting for you. JPG has none.
• It's a screenshot, a whiteboard, a receipt or anything with text and hard edges. Lossy compression smears fine lines; PNG keeps them crisp.
• A tool only accepts PNG. Older Windows software, some CMS uploaders, icon pipelines and CAD/annotation tools still take PNG and nothing else.
• You want a lossless intermediate. Convert once to PNG, do all your work, export the final JPG or WebP at the end. One generation of loss instead of five.

Stick with JPG when the file is a finished photo headed for the web, email or a printer, and size matters more than edit headroom.

Why the file grows 3 to 5 times

Don't panic when your 2 MB photo becomes a 9 MB PNG. That's expected, not a bug.

HEIC stores images with HEVC-based lossy compression: it throws away detail your eye won't miss and encodes the rest very efficiently. PNG is lossless and uses general-purpose DEFLATE compression, which works brilliantly on flat colour and terribly on photographic noise. Every grain of sensor noise in a sky has to be stored exactly.

A typical 12 MP iPhone shot (4032 x 3024) lands roughly like this:

• IMG_4821.HEIC - about 2 MB
• IMG_4821.jpg at quality 90 - about 3 MB
• IMG_4821.png - about 8-10 MB

So 4x is normal for a detailed photo; a screenshot or a flat graphic might only double. The pixels are identical to the decoded HEIC, so nothing is lost - you're just paying for lossless storage. Use PNG as a working file, then export something smaller for delivery.

Route 1: Convert HEIC to PNG online (no install)

Fastest option if you have a handful of files or you're on a locked-down work PC. Open our HEIC to PNG converter, drag in your .HEIC files, and download the PNGs. It runs in the browser, handles multiple files in one go, and needs no Apple software on Windows.

Practical notes:

• Rename before you convert if the names matter - IMG_4821.HEIC becomes IMG_4821.png, so hero-shot.HEIC is friendlier downstream.
• If you AirDropped to a Mac and got .heic in lowercase, that's the same format - no difference.
• For other targets (WebP, TIFF, PDF), the same files work in the image converter hub.

Route 2: macOS Preview and the sips command

On a Mac you already have everything you need.

Preview, one file: open the HEIC, choose File > Export, set Format: PNG, and save. To convert several at once, select them all in Finder, open them into a single Preview window, select every thumbnail in the sidebar, then File > Export Selected Images and pick PNG.

Terminal, the fast way: sips is built in.

# single file
sips -s format png IMG_4821.HEIC --out IMG_4821.png

# every HEIC in the folder, into ./png
mkdir -p png
for f in *.HEIC; do
  sips -s format png "$f" --out "png/${f%.HEIC}.png"
done

# resize the long edge to 2048 px while converting
sips -s format png -Z 2048 IMG_4821.HEIC --out [email protected]

Route 3: Batch conversion with ImageMagick

For hundreds of files, scripted pipelines or Windows/Linux, use ImageMagick 7 built with libheif. Check support first:

magick -list format | grep -i heic

If HEIC shows up with an r (read) flag, you're set. If not, install a build with HEIF support (brew install imagemagick on macOS pulls libheif in).

# one file
magick IMG_4821.HEIC IMG_4821.png

# whole folder, output into ./png
mkdir -p png
magick mogrify -format png -path png *.HEIC

# 16-bit PNG for heavy grading work, max compression
magick IMG_4821.HEIC -depth 16 -define png:compression-level=9 IMG_4821-16bit.png

# force sRGB for web use (iPhone shoots Display P3)
magick IMG_4821.HEIC -colorspace sRGB -strip IMG_4821-srgb.png

Two settings worth knowing. Colour profile: iPhone photos are Display P3. Keep the profile for design work in Photoshop or Affinity; convert to sRGB for anything going on the open web, or saturated reds will look off in old browsers. Bit depth: 8-bit is right for 99% of uses; go 16-bit only if you plan aggressive exposure or colour grading.

What does not survive the conversion

HEIC is a container, and it carries iPhone extras that PNG simply has no slot for. Expect these to be dropped by every converter, online or local:

• Depth maps and portrait mattes. The per-pixel depth data behind Portrait mode blur is gone, so you can't re-edit the bokeh afterwards. Adjust the depth effect in Photos before exporting.
• HDR gain maps. The auxiliary layer that makes photos glow on modern displays isn't part of PNG. Your PNG is a standard-dynamic-range image and will look flatter than the original on an HDR screen.
• Live Photo motion. The paired video component is discarded - you get the still key frame only.
• Burst and multi-image sequences. A multi-frame HEIC usually converts as the primary image; extract other frames explicitly if you need them.

Basic EXIF (date, camera, exposure) can be preserved in PNG text chunks by some tools but is often stripped. If provenance matters, keep the original HEIC archived alongside the PNG.

Pick your route in ten seconds

• One to twenty files, any computer: use the online converter. Done before a download finishes installing.
• You're on a Mac and comfortable in Terminal: sips -s format png is instant and already installed.
• Hundreds of files or a repeatable script: magick mogrify -format png -path png *.HEIC.
• Delivering to the web afterwards: convert to PNG, edit, then export JPG or WebP as the final step.

And always keep the originals. The HEIC holds depth and HDR data you can't rebuild from a PNG.

HEIC to PNG FAQ

Does converting HEIC to PNG lose quality? No. PNG is lossless, so it stores exactly the pixels decoded from the HEIC. Quality loss already happened inside the HEIC itself; converting adds none.

Can a converted iPhone photo have a transparent background? Not automatically. PNG supports an alpha channel, but a camera photo is fully opaque - you still remove the background yourself in Photoshop, GIMP or a cutout tool. Converting to PNG first is what makes saving that transparency possible.

How do I stop my iPhone producing HEIC? Settings > Camera > Formats > Most Compatible makes the camera shoot JPEG. You can also set Settings > Photos > Transfer to Mac or PC > Automatic to convert on transfer.

Why is my PNG 9 MB when the HEIC was 2 MB? Lossless compression on photographic detail. A 3-5x increase is normal; screenshots and flat graphics grow much less.

Can Windows open HEIC without converting? Windows 11 can with the HEIF and HEVC codecs installed, but many individual apps still can't read them. Converting to PNG sidesteps the whole problem.

PNG or TIFF for editing? PNG for general design work and anything crossing the web. TIFF if you need layers, CMYK or 16-bit output for print.