Getting HEIC photos, not JPG when copying to Win 11 PC

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Level 1

4 points

Getting HEIC photos, not JPG when copying to Win 11 PC

I have been downloading photos from my iPhone SE for quite a while to my PC. It's iOS is up to date. I had the phone's photos configured (Transfer to MAC or PC ) in "Automatic." My iphone Camera settings were Format - High Efficiency. When I downloaded photos, they converted to JPG's onto my WIN 10 PC.

I recently updated the PC from WIN 10 to WIN 11. Now ALL the photos in my iPhone when viewed by File Explorer are HEIC where previously they were JPG. When I copy/paste them to the PC I only get HEIC.

I've tried toggling the photos - Automatic/Keep Originals. I've tried HARD Booting the Phone, too.

If I toggle the camera Format from High Efficiency to Most Compatible and take a new photo, then when I view my photos from File Explorer, ONLY the NEW photos show up as JPG, not the other photos.

Nothing I've seen on line to do makes it work converting what's on my iPhone to JPG. I do not want to have to do a bulk conversion as this was a much simpler process!

Please Help!

iPhone SE

Posted on Aug 21, 2025 12:40 PM

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Answer 1

Kurt Lang

Level 9

67,632 points

Aug 23, 2025 06:05 PM in response to davemilster

Assuming HEIC is the format your iPhone is shooting, then it's a JPEG. That's the actual file format stored within the HEIC wrapper. And you have no control over the JPEG quality level. It's fixed at what we be about 7 on a scale of 1 (absolute junk) to 12 (least amount of blocky artifacts).

The difference between them is a standard JPEG only supports 8 bit color. An HEIC file manages to increase that to 10 bit color. That, and Photoshop (and I presume either image editors) treat HEIC as a RAW image, even thought that's not what it is.

But really, I'd have to check that one again to be certain HEIC defaults to Photoshop's RAW plugin as I normally shoot everything on my iPhone as DNG RAW.

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Answer 2

Aug 23, 2025 10:28 PM in response to davemilster

iOS/iPadOS 18 might have stopped the "Automatic" transfer option to work as it previously did:

At least in my setup (Windows 10 virtualized via VMware Fusion) .heic images were no longer automatically converted to .jpg when imported from iPhone (that Windows setup does not have .heic support installed).

So I guess you have to use some 3rd party Windows app to convert such .heic to .jpg. Or install .heic support to Windows.

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Answer 3

Aug 24, 2025 06:46 AM in response to davemilster

"Most Compatible" checks to see if you have Windows 10 and if so, it transfers as jpgs. If it's Windows 11, or a Mac, then it figures you can handle the more modern format, and it transfers as HEIC. Apparently it figures wrong.

Probably you'll find more people with Windows experience on a Microsoft Community site. Looking there I found this comment:

I found a better solution—TuneBro HEIC Converter. It opens HEIC files without extra extensions and allows batch conversion to JPG/PNG with no quality loss. No more Windows HEIC headaches—highly recommend!

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/discussions/windows11/heic-image-extension-not-working-on-windows-11-are-there-any-heic-extension-alte/4387238

Let us know if that works!

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