iPhone won’t convert HEIC to JPG

Notice that there are two related settings (example from iPadOS 17.3):

- Settings > Camera > Formats > High Efficiency (HEIF/HEVC) or Most Compatible (JPEG/H.264) capture.

Set that to Most Compatible if your computer can not display newer HEIF/HEVC formats.

Settings > Photos > TRANSFER TO MAC OR PC > Automatic (should convert HEIF to JPEG on windows 10) or Keep Originals (transfers HEIF to Windows 10 even if it can not display it).

Setting that to Automatic should convert HEIF/HEVC to older JPEG/H.264 if the target can not display HEIF/HEVC. If not, use some 3rd party tool to convert old footage and set the Camera to Most Compatible (JPEG/H.264) for new footage.

I am sorry to hear you are having this issue Phrynosoma! Please, try this.

1. Open "Settings"
2. Scroll town and touch "Camera"
3. Touch "Formats"
4. Select "Most Compatible"

Your iPhone/iPad will now take pictures with the ".jpg" file extension.

I hope this helped!,

Ethan

Have you tried powering down your iPhone and then power it back up again?

Yes! This is happening to a co-worker's 15 Pro Max also! No matter what we do the pictures come through as Hxxx and Windows 10 doesn't open them. I can't recreate the problem on my 14PM running 16.7.2. This is definitely a bug.

I am just now trying to figure out what to do about the HEIC formatted photos my new iPhone SE(3rd gen.) creates, so sorry I'm late to the thread.

I am an iCloud idiot, so I still have to airdrop photos taken with my iPhones, SE 2nd and now, 3rd gen. That didn't convert to jpeg, but I did notice at the bottom right of the Finder page, a useful tool...

I highlighted the 11 HEIC images, and then hit "Convert Image", and voilà!

Hopefully Apple will clear up this tech. snafu.

Steve

Looks like this was fixed in 17.2 according to my coworker. Can anyone who was experiencing this problem confirm that it's resolved?

I'm not sure if this helps, but I worked with a user who started forwarding images to himself via email. They arrive as an HEIC file. He has the latest iOS 17 version. I have iOS 16.6.1 and images I email come through as JPEG. We tested this further by air dropping an heic image from his iOS 17 to another user who has iOS 16. When they take the HEIC image and email it, it comes through as a JPEG.

Not sure if this is a bug in iOS 17 but thought it was noteworthy.

I also just started having this problem. I’ve had my phone for 3 years. I tried updating from 16 to 17 to see if the update would fix it, but it didn’t. I use a PC and send/use JPEG format, so I would really appreciate the compatibility option to actually work. Never had this probes before - I’ve been using the compatibility option without a problem since the HEIC format came out

Anyhelp would be appriciated. I have the same issue as well.

@phrynosoma any luck so far?.

still having same problem. My another concern is I am using google photos from my PC for backup which is not workings with this new format.

I have set my phone to store pictures in JPEG for now to to avoid issue with new photos.

Does anyone know if 17.3 fixes this issue?

I just checked and still not fixed for my old photos. I already changed my camera setting to capture in JPG for new photos.

As of 17.4.1 this error has still not been fixed. I'm running out of space on my phone. Very frustrated.