Free online HEIF to PNG converter

Some upload forms, older Windows programs, and editing workflows cannot open .heic or .heif photos but accept PNG files. Converting creates a widely supported image for editing, documents, and sharing, at the cost of a substantially larger file.

What HEIF files contain

HEIF (High Efficiency Image File Format) is an image container format based on the ISO Base Media File Format. It can hold a primary image, thumbnails, metadata, alpha channels, depth data, image sequences, and edit information. .heic is a common extension for HEIF files using HEVC image compression; iPhone and iPad commonly create these files when Settings → Camera → Formats → High Efficiency is enabled.

HEIF usually stores camera photos more efficiently than JPEG, but support depends on the operating system, application, and installed codecs. A file may therefore open on an iPhone or Mac but fail in an older desktop application or upload service.

What PNG provides

PNG is a lossless raster format supported by web browsers, office applications, image editors, and standard Windows and macOS tools. It supports transparency and is well suited to screenshots, graphics, and images that will be edited repeatedly without further lossy compression.

PNG is inefficient for photographs compared with HEIF. A PNG made from a phone photo will normally be several times larger than its source file. The conversion preserves the pixels decoded from the HEIF image, but cannot recover detail lost during the original HEVC encoding.

Convert a file to PNG

To convert without installing software, upload the .heic or .heif file on 101convert.com, select PNG as the output format, start conversion, and download the .png result. Open the downloaded file before deleting the original.

On macOS, open the image in Preview and choose File → Export. Select PNG in the Format list, choose the destination, and save. A multi-image HEIF container may need to be opened and exported one displayed image at a time.

On Windows, open the source in Paint, then choose File → Save as → PNG picture. If Windows cannot open the file, install Microsoft’s HEIF Image Extensions; some HEIF files using HEVC also require an HEVC decoder available through the Microsoft Store or another installed application.

For batches or automated processing, ImageMagick can convert HEIF when its installation includes libheif support:

magick input.heic output.png

In macOS or Linux shells, write batch output to a separate folder:

mkdir -p png
for f in *.heic; do [ -e "$f" ] && magick "$f" "png/${f%.heic}.png"; done

Quality and compatibility limits

A standard PNG normally receives only the decoded still image. Live Photo video, burst frames, depth maps, portrait-mode adjustment data, HEIF edit instructions, and other container items are not preserved as editable data in PNG.

Some recent phone images use HDR or 10-bit color. A converter may produce an 8-bit SDR PNG, or may alter color handling depending on the decoder and application; highlights and brightness can differ from the original. Check critical images in a color-managed viewer.

PNG can store transparency, but ordinary camera photos do not contain an alpha channel. EXIF data, GPS coordinates, orientation, ICC profiles, and other metadata may be omitted or changed during conversion. Keep the original HEIF file when metadata, HDR appearance, or archival fidelity matters.