Why are some iPhone photos saved as HEIC and some as JPEG, and how can I access them on other devices?

HEIC is Apple's High Efficiency Image Container format. Created a while ago, and is the default now these days on iPhones and iPads.

It should only be producing these photos if the Camera App is set to save them as such. You can verify this in Settings ➜ Camera ➜ Format. If set to High Efficiency it will save the photos as HEIC. If set to Most Compatible it will save them as Jpeg.

When emailing directly from the iPhone, it should convert the image automatically from HEIC to jpeg.

Any other method of sending the image will retain the HEIC format.

There are HEIC converters out there for Windows though.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/is-there-a-quick-way-to-convert-heic-to-jpg-on-my/3c3ba5fa-4123-48cf-b8b1-aeba40d4e5cb

In the Photos App, select the Photos you want to save to Dropbox.Tap on the Share icon at the bottom, and then tap on Copy Photos at the top of the menu.

Exit the Photos App, and open the Files App, navigate to a location / folder within Dropbox there, press and hold on an empty area of the opened folder, and then on "Paste" from the menu.

It will automatically convert the HEIC photos to jpegs.

HEIC is a newer format ,released about 10 years ago, that offered a High Efficiency compression that saves space in the limited environment of a phone, giving a somewhat better quality. My understanding is that Windows 10 doesn't understand new stuff without help, but Windows 11 should handle HEIC just fine.

The phone tries to recognize the nature of the computer that's receiving a shared picture, and it will send jpgs to Windows 10 for instance, and HEIC to Windows 11. This is controlled in Settings>Apps>Photos>Transfer to Mac or PC. Mine is set to Automatic.

If you have trouble viewing HEIC, then I understand that the Microsoft Store has "HEIF Image Extensions," released in 2018, that fixes the computer software to allow it to see newer stuff. I saw it here:

https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9pmmsr1cgpwg?hl=en-us&gl=US

Keep in mind that most of us here use Macs which have no problem with HEIC, so you can't trust me on this Windows stuff, really. Check the Microsoft Store to see what it says…

Phil0124 wrote: … HEIC is Apple's High Efficiency Image Container format.

HEIC was developed by the MPEG people, not Apple. However, Apple was apparently first to adopt it in 2017, followed by Android in 2019.

[Thank you, Wikipedia]

Richard.Taylor wrote:

Phil0124 wrote: … HEIC is Apple's High Efficiency Image Container format.

HEIC was developed by the MPEG people, not Apple. However, Apple was apparently first to adopt it in 2017, followed by Android in 2019.

[Thank you, Wikipedia]

Good to know.