Convert HEIC to PNG
A lossless copy of an iPhone picture that every program opens.
- Private by defaultDeleted within an hour
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How it works
Add your images
Drag and drop, paste, or pick files. They upload over an encrypted connection.
Pick a quality or a target size
Use the quality slider, or tell it exactly how many KB or MB you need.
Download
Save each file, or grab them all at once as a ZIP.
PNG stores every pixel exactly, so once a HEIC has become a PNG it can be opened, edited and saved again without losing anything more. That makes it the right choice when the picture will be edited again, placed in a document or a design, or contains text and sharp edges, such as a screenshot or a scanned page saved by an iPhone.
The price is size. A PNG of a photograph is several times larger than the HEIC it came from, because photographs do not compress well without loss. For photos that only need to be viewed or sent, JPG is the better target; for graphics, screenshots and anything you will keep working on, PNG is.
The rotation stored in the file is applied, so portraits stay upright. In the editor you can resize the picture, crop it, or switch to WebP, which also has a lossless mode and is usually smaller than PNG. Your iPhone pictures are opened by Safari, sent to us as a high-quality copy over an encrypted connection, turned into PNG on our own servers and deleted within one hour.
When PNG is the right destination for an iPhone picture
Most of the time you want a JPG from a HEIC. Three jobs call for PNG instead. The first is editing: a picture that will be retouched, drawn on or built into a design should not lose a little more each time it is saved, and PNG never does. The second is anything that will need transparency later, such as a product shot whose background you are about to remove, since PNG can hold the cut-out and JPG cannot. The third is pictures of text, such as a photographed document or a whiteboard, where JPEG leaves grey fuzz around every letter.
Expect large files, and plan for them
A twelve-megapixel HEIC from an iPhone weighs about 2 MB. The PNG made from it will be 12 to 20 MB. In the 48-megapixel mode of the Pro models the HEIC is around 5 MB and the PNG can pass 60 MB, more than most upload forms, mail servers and chat apps will take.
Two settings keep this under control. If the picture is headed for a document or a slide, Resize it to 2000 pixels on the long side first; the PNG then stays near 5 MB and still looks sharp at full screen. If it is a graphic and not a photograph, take the quality below 90, and the colours are reduced to a palette that suits flat artwork and cuts the size several times over.
Colour, depth and transparency
iPhones record in the wide Display P3 colour range. The PNG is written in standard sRGB with eight bits per channel, which every program displays correctly; the most intense greens and reds are brought slightly inward and few people will see it. Portrait-mode depth data and the HDR brightness layer of recent models do not carry over, so the PNG shows the standard version of the picture. A HEIC that contains real transparency, which some editing apps can export, keeps it: the alpha channel is written into the PNG as it is.
Frequently asked questions
Is HEIC to PNG lossless?
Very little. Safari opens the HEIC and hands us a copy at JPEG quality 95, and the PNG stores that copy exactly. The step is hard to see even at high zoom, but it is not pixel-exact, and detail the HEIC already dropped does not come back.
Why is the PNG so much bigger?
PNG does not discard anything, and photographs compress poorly without loss. Expect several times the size of the HEIC.
Should I choose PNG or JPG?
PNG for screenshots, text, graphics and pictures you will edit again. JPG for photographs you want to send or upload.
Does it work with screenshots from an iPhone?
Yes. Any HEIC or HEIF picture works, whether it is a photo, a screenshot or a scan.
Can I convert a Live Photo to PNG?
The still picture, yes. The few seconds of video that belong to a Live Photo are stored in a separate file and are not part of the HEIC.
Would TIFF be better than PNG for editing?
Both are lossless here, so the picture is identical. PNG opens in more programs and is smaller. TIFF is in the Format menu if your print shop or editing software asks for it.
Does this work in Chrome or on Windows?
Not for HEIC. The photo has to be opened by a browser with a HEIC decoder, and only Apple's have one: Safari on macOS, and every browser on iOS and iPadOS. Elsewhere, export a JPG or PNG from the Photos app first and use the page for that format.