# Why Windows cannot open iPhone HEIC photos

> HEIC is a HEIF still. Windows Photos often has no codec. JPEG is the interchange format.

Live HTML: https://plaintools.io/guides/why-windows-cannot-open-heic

Updated: 2026-09-07

## What the file actually is

Camera app stills on recent iPhones are HEIC: a HEIF container, typically HEVC inside. macOS and iOS decode it natively. Windows 10/11 often does not, unless you install Microsoft’s HEVC/HEIF extensions or a third-party codec.

Email systems, WordPress importers, and older CMSs reject HEIC or show a blank thumbnail. They want JPEG or PNG. That is an interchange problem, not a corrupt file.

## Two honest fixes

Install the vendor codec pack if you control the PC and will keep opening HEIC. Or convert the still to JPEG once and send that. Conversion does not need an upload: this site reads the file in the tab with libheif in WebAssembly.

Live Photos include a video track. The converter here is the still only. Burst sequences and HEIC-from-screenshot edge cases that are actually JPEG renamed to .heic are rejected by the file-header check.

## Privacy

Camera roll photos are a bad thing to drop on a random upload converter. If the job is ‘make a JPEG for this one Windows machine’, do it locally. The HEIC converter on this origin never posts the bytes.

## FAQs

### Can I just rename .heic to .jpg?

No. The container is not JPEG. You need a decode step.

### Does this convert AVIF too?

Not yet. AVIF is on the coming-next list with the same in-tab model.

## Related tools

- [HEIC converter](https://plaintools.io/convert/heic-converter.md) — HTML: https://plaintools.io/convert/heic-converter
- [Image compressor](https://plaintools.io/convert/image-compressor.md) — HTML: https://plaintools.io/convert/image-compressor
- [WebP converter](https://plaintools.io/convert/webp-converter.md) — HTML: https://plaintools.io/convert/webp-converter

## Related guides

_None._