HEIC vs JPEG

Question

Level 1

11 points

HEIC vs JPEG

It seems at some point Iphone defaulted to saving photos from JPEG to HEIC (is this correct?). I just now realized that since May 2018, our iphone photos were being taken as HEIC and being backed up to google photos as HEIC.

I wonder why apple did not inform or warn us that this change would occur?

We take photos with iphone and back them up with google photos, which we pay monthly for to backup many full resolution photos. Does this mean all the photos we have been taking for the last year have been in a lower HEIC resolution and even if converted to JPEG for viewing on the computer, will still be low resolution?

Also, is there any way to convert all those photos to JPEG at once? We can't open them anywhere except google photos and our iphones without converting them.

iPhone XS, iOS 12

Posted on Jun 19, 2019 3:12 PM

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Answer 1

Jun 19, 2019 3:34 PM in response to DTehrani

They actually did inform of the change when it happened with iOS 11 in 2017. Using HEIF or HEVC media on Apple devices - Apple Support

The default has been HEIC/F since then.

HEIF is a more space efficient format. short of High Efficiency Image Format, it saves storage space on your devices. the HEIC file is just the container for the HEIF file.

You can use Preview on a Mac to convert them to JPEG, or use Google Photos save as feature.

See here: Save HEIC photos as JPEG from Google Photos

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Answer 2

ChrisJ4203

Level 10

236,351 points

Jun 19, 2019 3:26 PM in response to DTehrani

No one would know about Apple informing anyone, and speculation is prohibited here on the forum. This is a user to user support forum, and Apple does not participate here.

There are a number of free conversion programs available to handle that conversion if you search.

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