HEIC vs JPG
One of these saves half your storage. The other one actually opens. That's the whole argument, and which one wins depends entirely on what you're about to do with the photo.
by Robert Castillo · Published · updated
The short answer
Keep HEIC on your phone. Send JPG to other people. That single rule covers almost every situation you'll run into, and it's what Apple itself does when you share a photo through most apps.
The reasoning is simple. Storage on your phone is finite and HEIC halves what each photo costs you. But the moment a photo leaves your device it lands somewhere you don't control — a Windows PC, a web form, someone's ancient Android — and there JPG is the only format guaranteed to work.
Side by side
| HEIC | JPG | |
|---|---|---|
| File size | About half | Roughly double for the same quality |
| Colour depth | Can be 10-bit: smoother gradients | 8-bit, can show banding in skies |
| Opens on Windows | Windows 11 usually; Windows 10 often not | Always |
| Opens on Android | Recent versions only | Always |
| Website uploads | Frequently rejected | Universally accepted |
| Transparency | Yes | No |
| Live Photos / bursts | Yes, several frames in one file | One still image only |
| Age | 2015, built on video compression | 1992 |
Note the shape of that table: HEIC wins on nearly every technical row and loses the only two that decide whether you can actually use the photo. That's the trade-off in a nutshell.
When HEIC is the right answer
Photos staying on your phone
Thousands of pictures you'll never send anywhere. Halving their size is free storage.
Skies, sunsets, gradients
HEIC can store 10-bit colour, which bands noticeably less in smooth transitions than 8-bit JPEG — when the camera actually saves it that way; plenty of phone photos are still 8-bit.
Archiving originals
If you're keeping the master copy, keep the one with more information in it.
When JPG is the right answer
Sending to anyone
Email, WhatsApp to a non-iPhone, a website form, a print shop. JPG never fails.
Anything touching Windows
Especially Windows 10, where HEIC often demands a paid codec before it will display.
Printing and paperwork
Photo labs, official forms and older software frequently accept nothing else.
What you lose converting HEIC to JPG
Converting downgrades the file, and it's worth being honest about that rather than pretending it's free. You go from a modern compressor to one designed in 1992, so the resulting JPG is bigger and slightly worse at the same time. You also drop from 10-bit colour to 8-bit, and any extra frames — the movement in a Live Photo, the alternative shots in a burst — are discarded, because a JPG holds exactly one image.
In practice, for a photo you're about to send to someone, none of this is visible. The loss matters when you're converting your whole library and deleting the originals. Don't do that: convert copies, keep the HEIC files.
And where does JPEG XL fit?
JPEG XL is the format that would settle this argument if support caught up. It matches HEIC's compression without HEVC's patent licensing (Windows charges for its HEVC extension, while its JPEG XL one is free), it handles both lossy and lossless in one format, and it can re-pack an existing JPEG about 20% smaller without touching a single pixel.
The catch in 2026 is the same one HEIC has, only worse: Safari displays it, most other software still doesn't. It's an excellent choice for archiving, and a bad one for sending a photo to your mother.
What happens to the date, location and other details
Both formats carry EXIF metadata — the date the photo was taken, the camera settings, and the GPS location if you had it enabled — and a straightforward conversion between them keeps that information intact. Your photo library will not suddenly lose track of when everything happened.
Two things do need watching. Some conversion tools strip metadata as a privacy measure, which is helpful if you are about to post the photo publicly and unhelpful if you are archiving. And HEIC can store depth maps and the edits you applied in the Photos app as separate, reversible layers; a JPG cannot, so those get flattened into the final image and you lose the ability to undo them later.
If the photos matter, the safe pattern is the same as always: convert a copy for sharing and leave the original where it is.