JPG files, on the other hand, are compatible with all operating systems and browsers. That's one of it's major downsides, and the reason Apple's OS converts HEIC photos to JPG when you download them or go to share them. Compatibility of HEIC vs JPGĪs you now already know, you can't just casually open a HEIC file if you don't have a Mac or iPhone. So you can actually get a better, higher resolution HEIF photo that's the same size as a not-so-high-quality JPG. HEIC photos are extra compressed, basically, so that they end up being about half the size of their JPG counterparts.Īlso, despite that extra compression, HEIC photos still maintain their quality (and will actually be higher quality than a JPG of the same size). Size and quality of HEIC vs JPG photosĪnother main difference is the size of the photos, as mentioned above. You'll need to download an extension or program to help you deal with it. If you're a Windows or Android user, you can't simply open a HEIF should you find yourself in possession of one. That way you can share them with whomever you want without worrying if your buddy will be able to open them on their Android phone, for example. One of the limiting factors of HEIC is that it's only natively supported by Apple's operating system (iOS 11 and higher, and MacOS High Sierra and higher).īut don't worry – even though your iPhone takes photos in HEIC, if you have iOS 11 or MacOS Sierra and higher you can easily convert these photos to JPG (more on that below). So let's break down the main differences between these two formats: Operating system support for HEIC vs JPG You might be more familiar with JPG, because it's been around longer and everyone (on any device) can use and view them easily. There are several important differences between HEIC files and JPG files. Rather, it's a container in which the photo is stored that uses advanced compression techniques to squish that photo down into about half the size of a JPG.Ī quick note, in case you're wondering: HEIF is the standard, and HEIC is the format name Apple gave it :) So I'll refer to it as HEIC in this article for simplicity's sake. That is, they're smaller while still maintaining their quality. HEIF stands for High Efficiency Image Format, and it was adopted by Apple in 2017.Īs you might be able to guess from its name, photos stored in this way are 'more efficient'. heic is the file extension that appears on HEIF files/images. In this article we'll discuss what HEIC is, how it's different from the JPG format, why Apple uses it, how to convert from HEIC to JPG, and more. And you might wonder – what is this photo format, and why does Apple use it? If you're an Apple user, chances are you've seen the.

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