HEIC will not open on Windows? Make a PDF of the photos instead

Convert the HEIC photos now

1. Drop the .HEIC files on the tool, or click Choose files. Any number, mixed with JPG or PNG if you have them.
2. Check the order in the list; Up and Down move a photo 1 place.
3. Pick a paper. A4 (the default) or US Letter for a document you will print or send on; “Same as the picture” for a file that is only looked at on screen.
4. Click Make the PDF, then Download PDF. The first HEIC fetches the decoder (2 MB) once; after that the job runs on your PC alone.

The result says what was done, for example “1 HEIC photo decoded on this device and written as JPEG at quality 90”. If you need 1 file per photo instead of 1 PDF for all, set Output to “One PDF per picture” before converting.

Why Windows refuses the file

HEIC is the High Efficiency Image Format with HEVC compression, the format iPhones and iPads save photos in by default since iOS 11 (2017). Apple’s support page says it compresses better than JPEG, so photos take less space at the same visual quality (Apple Support, “Using HEIF or HEVC media on Apple devices”, checked on 11 October 2026).

Windows reads the container but not the compression without help. Microsoft’s own Store page for the free HEIF Image Extensions says the HEVC Video Extensions must also be installed to view images in .heic files, and that package costs 0.99 USD in the US Microsoft Store (both Store pages checked on 11 October 2026). Without it, Windows cannot show the picture. The photo is fine; the codec is missing.

The 4 fixes, and when each makes sense

Most Compatible. On the iPhone: Settings, Camera, Formats, Most Compatible. New photos and videos are then JPEG and H.264. Apple’s page notes the trade: the High Efficiency formats exist because they take less space.

USB import. Apple says photos copied to a computer over USB might be converted to JPEG, unless the iPhone is set to Keep Originals in its Photos settings. If you import photos from the phone with its cable and get HEIC, that setting is the reason.

The browser. For files that already arrived by mail, chat or a shared drive, converting is the quickest fix. The next section is what happens to them.

What happens to the photos on the way

PDF cannot hold HEIC, so every photo is decoded once, at full resolution, and written into the PDF as a JPEG at quality 90. That is one re-encode, at a quality where the difference is not visible in normal viewing, and it is the only change: nothing is scaled down, cropped or sharpened. The rotation the iPhone stored is applied, so portrait photos stand up.

Size goes up, not down. HEIC is the more efficient format, so the same picture needs more bytes as JPEG. On our 12 megapixel test picture, the quality 90 JPEG came to 3.1 MB; a lossless copy of the same pixels would have been 21.8 MB, which is why the tool does not store HEIC photos losslessly. Expect about 3 MB per photo page, and see why a photo PDF gets big before mailing 20 of them.

Stopping it next time

If the photos come from someone else’s iPhone, the lasting fix is theirs: Most Compatible in the camera settings, or sharing photos as JPEG when they send them. If you buy the codec instead, Windows Photos opens HEIC like any other photo from then on, and you only need a PDF when someone asks for a document.

When a PDF is the wrong answer

A PDF is for reading, printing and sending as 1 document. If the person needs the photos as separate, editable image files (to crop, to post, to put in an album), a PDF is a detour: it holds the pictures, but getting them back out means converting again. For that job, the codec or the Most Compatible setting is the honest fix, and this tool does not convert HEIC to JPG files.

Two more limits: a HEIC that uses a rare variant the decoder does not have is refused with a sentence saying so (sharing it from the iPhone as JPEG always works), and a Live Photo comes out as its still picture only.

The decoder is a web page’s file, not an installed program, and it runs in your browser tab, so the photos never leave your PC. iPhone photos to PDF shows the same job done on the phone itself, before the photos ever reach Windows, and Pictures to PDF covers every other format.