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Convert HEIC to JPG on PC

A standard out-of-the-box Windows PC cannot open HEIC files at all without first purchasing the HEVC Video Extensions from the Microsoft Store, an extra step that ranges from mildly annoying to genuinely blocking depending on whether your machine is personally owned, corporately managed, family-shared, or running an older Windows build that does not have the Microsoft Store enabled. FixTools eliminates that requirement entirely: open Chrome or Microsoft Edge on any Windows PC, drag your HEIC files onto the converter, and download universally compatible JPG output within seconds, with no codec purchase to wait for, no Microsoft account to sign into, no administrator approval to chase, no system service to install, and no Group Policy exception to request. The tool works identically on Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows Server, and Windows on ARM machines, because the conversion engine lives inside the browser rather than depending on any Windows-level codec infrastructure.

⚡ Use Tool Now How it works

Cost: Free forever
Sign-up: Not required
Processing: In your browser
Privacy: Files stay local

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No HEVC codec purchase needed

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Works in Chrome and Edge on Windows 10/11

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No software installation required

Image Tool

HEIC to JPG Converter

All processing happens in your browser — your files are never uploaded to any server.

🚀Open HEIC to JPG Converter

100% Free · No account · Works on any device

Windows HEIC Compatibility: Why the Codec Problem Persists

The HEIC compatibility gap on Windows is at root a patent licensing problem rather than a technical limitation, and understanding that fact is the key to seeing why every workaround for the issue looks the way it does. HEVC, formally known as H.265, is covered by a thicket of patents held by multiple organizations including MPEG LA, Via LA, and several individual rights holders, all of whom expect per-device royalties from any vendor that ships an HEVC decoder embedded in operating system software. Microsoft has chosen not to bundle a free HEVC decoder into Windows because doing so would expose them to per-install licensing costs across every PC and Surface device that ships with the operating system, costs that would scale into hundreds of millions of dollars annually given Windows install volumes. That is structurally different from how older codec support works in Windows, where MP3, H.264, and JPEG decoders are included by default because Microsoft holds blanket licenses covering those specific formats. No such blanket arrangement currently exists for HEVC.

The practical consequence rolls down to every Windows user who receives an iPhone HEIC photo through email, AirDrop bridges, USB transfer, shared cloud storage, or a messaging app that delivers the original file rather than a server-converted copy. Windows Photos shows a generic error message when asked to open the file, File Explorer fails to generate a thumbnail and falls back to a generic image icon, and most Windows applications including Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and the bundled Mail app return a format-not-supported notice when the file is dragged onto them. The roughly one-dollar HEVC Video Extensions package from the Microsoft Store fixes the problem at the system level by installing the missing decoder, but the purchase requires a Microsoft account, and a substantial fraction of corporate PCs have the Microsoft Store disabled by Group Policy. Some OEM laptops ship with a free HEVC license pre-installed at the manufacturer level, but coverage varies widely by brand, model, and build year, so you cannot reliably assume any given Windows PC will have working HEIC support out of the box.

Browser-based conversion bypasses the Windows codec layer entirely and that is the architectural insight that makes a tool like FixTools possible. Chrome and Microsoft Edge on Windows both include mature WebAssembly runtimes built into the browser binary itself, and those runtimes can execute compiled HEVC decoders that are functionally independent of any operating-system-level codec support. FixTools delivers a libheif build cross-compiled to WebAssembly along with the page, and that decoder runs inside the browser tab's sandboxed memory space, decodes the HEIC file in pure portable code, and hands the resulting pixel buffer to the standard HTML5 Canvas API for re-encoding as a JPEG. At no point in that pipeline does any Windows codec API get called, and at no point does the conversion depend on the HEVC Video Extensions being installed. The output JPG is a standard baseline JPEG file that every Windows application can open natively, which solves the compatibility problem without modifying the system, installing software, or making any Microsoft Store purchase.

For users on managed Windows machines, that browser-based architecture has particular significance because it means HEIC conversion remains accessible even on locked-down corporate or educational systems where the user has no administrative rights, no Microsoft Store access, and no ability to install desktop software. Chrome or Edge is essentially always available on a managed Windows PC because IT departments treat browsers as essential productivity software, and any browser capable of running modern JavaScript and WebAssembly can host the FixTools converter. The conversion runs entirely within the user's normal browsing privileges and leaves no system-level changes behind when the browser closes, which means there is nothing for an IT audit to flag and nothing for security software to quarantine. That property makes FixTools especially valuable in regulated industries, government workstations, school district laptops, and any other environment where the user's authority over the underlying operating system is limited but their use of the standard browser is fully sanctioned.

HEVC Video Extensions in Microsoft Store HEVC patent licensing (MPEG LA)

How to use this tool

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Upload HEIC files received from an iPhone or transferred to your Windows PC. FixTools converts them to JPG in Chrome or Edge without any codec installation. Download and open in Windows Photos.

How It Works

Step-by-step guide to convert heic to jpg on pc:

1
Open Chrome or Edge on Windows
Launch Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge on your Windows 10 or Windows 11 PC. Both browsers ship with mature WebAssembly runtimes that can host the HEIC decoder FixTools uses, and Edge is pre-installed on every modern Windows machine so it is always available even on locked-down corporate systems where Chrome may not have been approved by IT. Either browser produces identical conversion results.
2
Go to FixTools
Type fixtools.io into the address bar and navigate to the HEIC to JPG Converter page. The first visit downloads the WebAssembly decoder module along with the page assets, which adds a few seconds to the initial load but is cached aggressively by the browser, so every subsequent visit opens essentially instantly without re-downloading the decoder bundle even on slower connections.
3
Upload HEIC files
Click the Upload control to bring up the standard Windows file picker, navigate to the folder containing your HEIC files, and select one or many at once using Ctrl-click or Shift-click. Alternatively, open File Explorer in a separate window and drag the HEIC files directly onto the FixTools upload area. Both methods queue the files into the converter's in-memory work list without uploading anything to a server.
4
Convert and download
Click the Convert button to start processing. On a modern Windows desktop with a recent multi-core CPU, each typical iPhone HEIC converts to JPG in roughly one to three seconds, and the WebAssembly software decoder runs in the background without blocking the Windows shell. Once the run finishes, click each per-file download arrow or use Download All as ZIP, then open the resulting JPGs in Windows Photos, Paint, Office, or any application.

Real-world examples

Common situations where this approach makes a real difference:

Home user receiving iPhone photos

A Windows 11 home user opens an email from a spouse containing three HEIC attachments from a recent weekend trip, intended for printing and framing for the living room wall. Windows Photos returns a generic "We can't open this file" error for each attachment, and the in-built Mail app cannot display the inline previews. The user opens Microsoft Edge, navigates to FixTools, drags the three HEIC attachments directly out of the Outlook message pane and onto the converter's upload area, watches them convert at quality 92 for print-grade output, and downloads the three JPGs in under twenty seconds. The local print shop accepts the JPGs without complaint.

Small business without IT support

A small independent retailer running a single Windows 10 PC behind the front counter receives weekly product photos from a wholesale supplier whose photographer shoots on a personal iPhone 14 and exports the unmodified HEIC originals. The retailer's WooCommerce product catalog rejects HEIC uploads outright, demanding JPEG or PNG for every product image. With no in-house IT support and no comfortable path to purchasing the HEVC Video Extensions through the Microsoft Store on a business machine, the retailer uses FixTools in Chrome every Monday morning to batch convert that week's ten to twenty HEIC product photos to JPG at quality 88 before uploading them to the catalog, spending roughly three minutes per batch in total.

Corporate PC with Store blocked

A project manager working from a corporate Windows 11 laptop discovers that the Microsoft Store is disabled by Group Policy across the entire company, meaning the standard one-dollar HEVC Video Extensions purchase path is simply unavailable to her regardless of her willingness to expense it. She regularly receives HEIC photos from field team members who carry iPhones as their primary work device, and she needs those photos for weekly status reports built in PowerPoint. FixTools running in the IT-sanctioned Chrome installation converts her incoming HEIC batches to JPG without any Microsoft Store interaction, any administrative privilege escalation, or any IT support ticket, and the converted JPGs embed cleanly into PowerPoint for the Monday morning leadership review.

Media professional using external drive

A video editor working from a Windows 11 workstation in a small production house receives a portable USB drive containing roughly three hundred HEIC photos from a client who shot a corporate event on an iPhone 15 Pro alongside the contracted videographer. The photos are needed as reference stills for the timeline edit in Adobe Premiere, which on this particular machine cannot import HEIC because the HEVC codec licensing is incomplete. The editor uses FixTools batch conversion in Chrome, processing the three hundred files in six batches of fifty each across roughly thirty minutes of background work, then imports the resulting JPGs at quality 90 with an average file size of 6.1 MB straight into Premiere as bin assets without any further format friction.

Pro tips

Get better results with these expert suggestions:

Use Edge for HEIC conversion on corporate PCs

Microsoft Edge ships pre-installed on every Windows 10 and Windows 11 PC and is virtually never blocked by corporate IT policy because it is treated as core operating system software. If Chrome is not approved for installation on a managed machine, Edge supports the same WebAssembly and Canvas APIs that FixTools relies on and works identically for HEIC conversion. Edge also integrates particularly smoothly with Windows file handling, so dragging HEIC files directly from File Explorer onto the converter's upload area feels native and avoids the file-picker dialog entirely.

Set File Explorer to show file extensions

Windows hides known file extensions by default, which means HEIC files often appear in File Explorer with just a filename and no .heic suffix, making them look indistinguishable from any other photo at a glance. Enable extensions through the View ribbon by checking Show, File name extensions on Windows 11, or through View, Options, View tab, uncheck Hide extensions for known file types on Windows 10. Once enabled, every HEIC in your folders becomes immediately identifiable, which prevents accidentally uploading regular JPGs to the converter or missing HEIC files that need conversion.

Pin FixTools to your taskbar as an installed app

Microsoft Edge supports installing any website as a Progressive Web App via the three-dot menu, Apps, Install this site as an app option. Run that flow on the FixTools HEIC converter page and Edge creates a pinnable taskbar shortcut that opens the tool in a frameless application-style window. The result behaves like a locally installed converter, complete with its own taskbar entry, jump list, and Alt-Tab presence, but with zero installation footprint on the system itself, which makes it ideal for repeat users on managed machines.

Transfer iPhone photos with Automatic conversion via USB

When you connect an iPhone to a Windows PC via the USB cable, the device-side toggle at iPhone Settings, Photos, Transfer to Mac or PC controls what format iOS hands across the wire. Setting it to Automatic causes iOS to detect the Windows host and convert HEIC to JPEG on the fly during transfer, so the files arrive on the PC already in universally compatible format. Use FixTools when photos reach the Windows PC through any other route, including email attachments, cloud sync folders, messaging apps, or external drives, all of which deliver the unmodified HEIC source files.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Windows does not ship with the HEVC, also known as H.265, decoder that is required to read the pixel data inside a HEIC file. That omission is deliberate on Microsoft's part because HEVC is covered by patents owed to MPEG LA, Via LA, and several other rights holders who expect per-device royalty payments from any operating system that bundles a decoder. Including HEVC support for free would expose Microsoft to those licensing costs at Windows install scale, so they offload the cost to users via the optional HEVC Video Extensions package in the Microsoft Store. Without that codec installed, Windows Photos returns a generic error, File Explorer produces no thumbnails, and almost every native Windows application refuses to open HEIC. Browser-based conversion using FixTools sidesteps the codec layer entirely.

No, the codec purchase is not required when you use FixTools because the conversion engine ships its own HEVC decoder compiled to WebAssembly and runs that decoder inside the browser tab independently of any Windows-level codec infrastructure. The HEIC file is decoded in your browser's sandboxed memory using pure portable code, painted onto an HTML5 Canvas, and re-encoded as a baseline JPEG, all without ever calling the Windows codec APIs that would normally fail. You can convert HEIC to JPG on any Windows 10 or Windows 11 PC using either Chrome or Edge without spending any money in the Microsoft Store, and the resulting JPG files open immediately in Windows Photos, Paint, Office, and every other native Windows application.

For viewing individual HEIC files locally without converting them, IrfanView with its add-on plugin pack is the most widely recommended free option for Windows users, and it handles HEIC at acceptable speed once the plugin is installed. XnView MP is another solid free desktop option that displays HEIC natively and supports the same batch conversion workflows as IrfanView. Both are free for personal use, though IrfanView requires a license for commercial deployment. For users who need HEIC files to be portable beyond their own PC, converting to JPG using FixTools is usually a more practical answer than installing a viewer, because the resulting JPGs work everywhere and require no software dependency at all on the receiving end.

Yes, batch conversion works in any modern Windows browser including Chrome, Edge, and Firefox. Select multiple HEIC files at once in the upload dialog using Ctrl-click or Shift-click, or drag a group of files directly from File Explorer onto the FixTools upload area in the browser tab. The converter processes files in parallel through Web Worker threads on multi-core CPUs, which means a batch of fifty typical iPhone HEIC photos commonly finishes in roughly two to three minutes of wall clock time on a recent Windows desktop. Download the entire batch as a single ZIP archive when finished. For very large libraries running into the hundreds of files, process in groups of fifty to eighty per batch for reliable browser memory behavior.

Windows 11 improved a handful of small details around HEIC handling compared to Windows 10, including slightly better thumbnail rendering on certain Surface devices, but the fundamental codec licensing situation has not changed. Windows 11 still requires the HEVC Video Extensions package from the Microsoft Store for full HEIC compatibility in Windows Photos, File Explorer thumbnails, and native Windows applications. A handful of Windows 11 OEM builds receive a free HEVC license pre-installed at the manufacturer level, but the coverage varies by hardware vendor and is not guaranteed on any given machine. Converting to JPG using FixTools remains the most reliable cross-application solution that works identically on every Windows 11 PC regardless of OEM, build, and codec licensing state.

Yes, completely free with no qualifications. FixTools requires no signup, no Microsoft account, no email address, no credit card, and no Microsoft Store purchase to run on a Windows PC. Open Chrome or Edge, navigate to fixtools.io, and convert any number of HEIC files at zero cost. As an alternative free option, IrfanView can batch-convert HEIC to JPEG natively, but only after the user has either purchased the HEVC Video Extensions or installed a third-party codec workaround, both of which add friction that FixTools eliminates. The browser-based approach is the simplest no-cost path on Windows because it neither requires nor benefits from any prior codec installation.

Connect your iPhone to the Windows PC using a Lightning or USB-C cable, open Settings on the iPhone, scroll down to Photos, locate the Transfer to Mac or PC option near the bottom of the page, and choose Automatic. With that toggle set, iOS detects the Windows host and converts HEIC photos to JPEG during the transfer itself, so the files arrive on the PC already in JPG format without any further tooling required. As a more permanent alternative, set the iPhone camera itself to Most Compatible mode under Settings, Camera, Formats, which causes the camera to save new photos as JPEG rather than HEIC at capture time. Existing HEIC photos already in your library remain HEIC and require FixTools to convert.

FixTools depends on a browser that supports modern JavaScript and WebAssembly, which means it works on any Windows version where you can run a current build of Chrome, Edge, or Firefox. Windows 7 reached end of life in January 2020 and the latest Chrome versions no longer install on that operating system, but if you have managed to keep a Windows 7 machine on Chrome 109 or an equivalent earlier build, the converter generally still functions. Windows 8 and 8.1 sit in a similar position. For reliable conversion the safest baseline is Windows 10 or newer with a browser updated within the last twelve months. Older Windows versions may work but are not actively tested.

Yes, the source of the HEIC files makes no difference to the converter. You can upload HEIC files to FixTools from any location your Windows PC can read, including local hard drives, external USB drives, SD cards, mapped network shares, OneDrive sync folders, Dropbox folders, and corporate file servers. The conversion runs in the browser using the bytes read from those locations, and the resulting JPGs are downloaded to your standard browser Downloads folder by default, from where you can move them anywhere you choose. There is no requirement that the HEIC originals be on a local disk, and you can mix files from multiple sources into a single batch upload without any issue.

No, FixTools never modifies the original HEIC source files in any way. The converter reads the HEIC bytes into browser memory for processing, performs the decode and JPEG encode entirely in that working memory, and writes the output JPG to your browser Downloads folder as an entirely new file. The original HEIC files remain unchanged at their source location, including their filename, file size, modification date, file permissions, and pixel data. You can convert the same HEIC files multiple times at different quality settings without any concern about cumulative damage to the originals, since each conversion produces a fresh output file rather than overwriting anything.