Photo setting is most compatible but HEIC won't convert to jpg

Thanks for this, Ieonie. I guess I misunderstood the way 'most compatible' is supposed to work, I thought it would stop saving pictures in HEIC on my iPhone and revert back to the normal jpg, but as you have clarified above it is only supposed to work when transferring photos (again Apple dropped the ball when making this OS wide change and not explaining these nuances). That being said, I am in the same boat as all the rest of the users on this thread.... even with 'most compatible' set on my iPhone, the downloading process to my PC has become a pain where only some of my pictures get download (I never had this problem before Apple went to HEIC). Sometimes new pics don't even show up/are not recognized or downloaded .... I would like to know how my iPhone determines "....when the system on the PC cannot handle HEIF..." but it seems to be a flaky algorithm. I'm sure Apple can blame it on the PC software but the reality is Apple change their product mid-stream and it does not seem to be fully debugged. They should have given the iPhone users the option to revert back to jpg only photos on their iPhones instead of this command decision to force everyone to use HEIC formats. Very unhappy Apple customer.

Same.

I went to Settings --> Camera --> Formats --> and chose "most compatible." Still sending in heic format. I tried restarting the phone. Still sending in heic format AND restarting my phone meant my background image disappeared and I have a black background. Sighs. Apple is trash.

I have found that the 'most compatible' setting does not always ensure that the HEIC picture mode has been turned off when I take pictures... and this causes problems when I try to download my pictures to my PC because my PC does not recognize HEIC formats (unless I load a HEIC-to-JPG converter....thanks Apple!). I don't know which is most annoying/frustrating: I paid $1K for a phone that is full of bugs (I have other issues with this phone/latest OS); the fact that Apple has made their proprietor HEIC the default picture format on iPhones or that Apple did this with out any alert/warning that this was the new default ( had to figure this out by searching google)!? This is would be a great business school case study on how not to win over new customers....unless your a monopoly and don't care.

Agree with so many here. It's a pain.

Here's one thing that seems to help:

• If I text a photo to my imessage and drag it onto my desktop, it's in heic. But,
• If I connect my phone to my macbook with a cord and import into Photos (formerly iPhoto), and then drag the photos from Photos onto the desktop or into a folder, they're JPGs.

Per suggestion in the thread I just updated my iOS to 17.3 (turned phone off and on after upgrade to ensure it was now using the new upgraded iOS).... then I plugged the phone into my PC USB port and downloaded my pics.... the old jpg pics (i.e. that people sent me and that I took before Apple screwed up my camera) came in okay, but all the new pics I took still came in as HEIC, and I also found that I can not view the new video clips I took on my iPhone though they still have the MOV format, my PC said it can not recognized the format, so it seems that Apple's new format conversion also applies to video's as well? I ran a test to see if maybe the old photo's format might be corrupted by the "previous" buggy iOS..... I took a new photo and then tried to download it to my PC.....but the new photo was not even listed in the PC photo download as well as my other 250+ pics were also missing.....so now my download process, iPhone to PC, is not working correctly, another Apple bug? I also noticed another issue: In my photo files on my PC, I can view some of the HEIC photos but not others???? I ponder if the Apple bug has changed these photos to jpg but did not change the file extension!? Anyway, it is still a mess even when using iOS 17.3 Comment: My previous iPhone was rock solid and I never had any issues with downloading pics to my PC.....which only happened recently with these new Apple iOS 'features' (i.e. I used to work in the IT industry and we always referred to the 'bugs' that were introduced with new upgrades as added 'features' ....yes it is a sarcastic reference.) I am sure we are all asking: Why didn't Apple leave well enough alone and allow users to choose if they want the HEIC & 'new' MOV format instead of jpg. Oh by the way, I where I should send my billable hours for helping Apple debug their iOS issues?

Final observation as of Feb 27, 2024: The Apple iPhone 12 iOS 17.3.1 camera software is still full of bugs!

• Even with the Camera Formats Setting set to 'Most Compatible' some of the pictures I took over the past week were still stored as HEIC while some were stored as jpeg !?
• Transferring photos from your iPhone to a PC takes multiple times of plugging/unplugging the phone to get all the new pictures downloaded to the PC. The Photo Setting for Transferring (i.e. Automatic or Keep Original) does not seem to matter regarding the buggyness of the transfer program.

So I am done wasting any more time on this and will be purchasing (don't trust freeware) a HEIC conversion program for the HEIC formats that keep coming through. Thanks again Apple for an incompatible product when used outside the Apple environment.

It says this in the camera settings; "Most compatible will always use JPEG/H.264. Cinematic video, 4K at 60 fps, 1080p at 240 fps, and HDR video require High Efficiency." It never mattered whether you had High Efficiency or Most Compatible selected, the phone would convert HE to a different format when sharing. This is broken in iOS17. Just clarifying for the confused.

There is a "Most Compatible" setting in "Camera > Formats". Are you referring to this? This will just ensure, that the new photos will be taken as JPEGs and not HEIC.

To convert the photos automatically to JPEGs, when you transfer them to your PC, change "Settings > Photos: Transfer to Mac or PC > Automatic". This will automatically convert the downloaded photos, if your PC cannot handle HEIC. See: Using HEIF or HEVC media on Apple devices - Apple Support

Same problem for me. Setting changed and still downloaded as HEIC not JPG (using a PC). This is VERY frustrating - I have 350+ pics to download.

Yes, the conversion is only applied when downloading photos directly from the device, and only, when the system on the PC cannot handle HEIF. The Setting does not ensure that Photos will be converted, when you share them in other ways.

I asked my coworker if this was fixed in 17.3 and he told me that this was actually fixed in the previous update, maybe 17.2. Can anyone else confirm that this issue is resolved?

I have iOS 17.2.1 and per my thread here, it is still not working correctly.

I'm on 17.2.1 and it's definitely not fixed