Convert iPhone HEIC photos to PNG so any app or browser can open them.
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A 2 MB iPhone HEIC photo typically becomes 10 – 20 MB as PNG.
Quality: Lossless once decoded. PNG preserves the HEIC pixels at full fidelity.
Best for: editing photos in software that doesn't support HEIC.
Avoid when: compactness matters — PNG is much larger than HEIC.
Tip: PNG is overkill for most iPhone photos. Convert to JPG unless you specifically need lossless or transparency.
PNG is lossless and supports transparency — the two things JPG can't do. Screenshots, UI mockups, logos, icons, diagrams, and anything with sharp edges or text should be PNG. File sizes are larger than JPG for photographic content (usually 2-5×), so PNG is a bad choice for photographs unless you specifically need lossless. Note: PNG has no metadata for camera EXIF, so converting a photo JPG → PNG loses the camera info.
Converting HEIC to PNG decodes the HEVC-compressed image data and stores every decoded pixel losslessly. Unlike HEIC-to-JPG (which re-compresses with a second lossy codec), HEIC-to-PNG preserves the decoded quality without any additional loss. The file will be significantly larger (often 10-20×) but represents the highest quality extraction possible from the HEIC source.
Choose PNG over JPG when the iPhone photo will be heavily edited (each lossless save avoids accumulating artifacts), when you need to add transparency in an editor, or when maximum quality preservation justifies the larger file size.
Technical comparison of the two formats — useful for deciding which to use, or for confirming what changes during conversion.
| Property | HEIC | PNG |
|---|---|---|
| Full name | High Efficiency Image Container | Portable Network Graphics |
| Year introduced | 2017 | 1996 |
| Developer / standard body | MPEG / Apple | PNG Development Group / W3C |
| MIME type | image/heic | image/png |
| File extension | .heic / .heif | .png |
| Compression | Lossy (HEVC) | Lossless (DEFLATE) |
| Color / data depth | 8/10-bit | 24-bit truecolor + 8-bit alpha |
| Max dimensions / size | 8,192 × 4,320 px | 2,147,483,647 × 2,147,483,647 px |
| Transparency | Yes | Yes |
| Animation | Yes | APNG extension only |
| Standard / specification | ISO/IEC 23008-12 | W3C / ISO/IEC 15948 |
| Best for | iPhone photo storage (50% smaller than JPG at equivalent quality) | Logos, screenshots, graphics with transparency or sharp edges |
HEIC (High Efficiency Image Container) is a modern image format that Apple adopted as the default photo format starting with iOS 11 in 2017. It uses H.265/HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding) compression to achieve dramatically smaller file sizes — typically 40-50% smaller than JPEG at equivalent visual quality. This efficiency allows smartphones to store significantly more photos without sacrificing the detail and colour accuracy users expect.
HEIC is primarily used within the Apple ecosystem for photos captured on iPhones and iPads. It supports advanced features including 10-bit colour depth, HDR imaging, and the ability to store multiple images (such as Live Photos or burst sequences) within a single file. The main drawback is limited compatibility outside of Apple devices — Windows requires an extension to view HEIC files, web browsers generally do not support it, and many image editors lack native HEIC support, making conversion to JPEG or PNG often necessary for sharing.
Quick answers about compatibility, quality, metadata handling, and the most common reasons to convert HEIC files to PNG.
Read image-format guides, transparency tips, compatibility fixes, and file-size advice related to HEIC to PNG Converter.
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