How to convert HEIC to JPG on a Mac
The fastest way needs nothing installed: select the files in Finder, right-click, Quick Actions → Convert Image, pick JPEG. That covers most cases. The rest of this page is about when it isn't enough and what the conversion actually costs you.
Three ways, in order of how much you'll need them
Finder Quick Actions. Built in since macOS Monterey, handles batches, lets you pick a size. For turning twenty holiday photos into something you can email, stop here.
Preview. Open, File → Export, choose JPEG, and you get a quality slider — which Quick Actions doesn't. Useful when you care about the trade-off rather than just needing a readable file.
A dedicated tool. Worth it when converting isn't the only thing you're doing: the photo also needs to be larger, cleaner, or brighter. Converting and then upscaling in two passes means two lossy encodes; doing it in one keeps a single generation of loss.
Why HEIC exists at all
HEIC stores roughly the same picture in about half the space of an equivalent JPG, because it uses HEVC — the same modern compression as h.265 video — rather than JPEG's design from 1992. On a 128GB phone that difference is thousands of photos.
It also does things JPEG cannot: 10-bit colour depth, transparency, and multiple images in one file, which is how Live Photos and some depth effects are stored. Converting to JPG discards all of that. For a snapshot it doesn't matter. For a photo with real tonal range in the sky, 8-bit JPG is a genuine downgrade.
The quality question
Both formats are lossy, so converting means decoding an already-compressed image and re-compressing it with a different lossy codec. The loss compounds — it is not large at high JPG quality, and at 90% or above you will not see it, but it is not zero and it is not recoverable.
The practical rule: convert a copy, keep the HEIC. Storage is cheap and the original is the only version with the full data. If you ever want to reprocess that photo properly — a real edit, a print, an upscale — you want the file that hasn't been through a second encoder.
What breaks when you convert
| Feature | Survives? |
|---|---|
| The image itself | Yes |
| EXIF: date, camera, exposure | Usually |
| GPS location | Usually — check, if that matters either way |
| 10-bit colour depth | No — JPG is 8-bit |
| Transparency | No |
| Live Photo motion | No |
| Depth map / portrait data | No |
The GPS row cuts both ways. If you are posting the photo publicly, stripping location is a feature and worth confirming it actually happened. If you are archiving family photos, losing where they were taken is a quiet, permanent loss you will notice in ten years.
When the photo needs more than a format change
Old iPhone photos are often small by modern standards — a 2016 iPhone shot is 12MP but was processed by a 2016 pipeline, and it shows on a 5K display. If you're converting anyway, that is the moment to also upscale and clean it, because doing both in one pass avoids a second generation of compression loss.
Crisp handles HEIC directly — drop it in, and the export writes a standard JPG or PNG with the upscale and any cleanup applied in the same operation. It runs on your Mac, which for a photo library is the sane default: family photos have no business being uploaded to a converter site to save you a right-click.