Convert HEIC to PNG
Output is typically roughly 8.8× larger.
- Files stay on your device
- Free, no sign-up
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Why did my 2 MB photo become a 20 MB PNG?
Because PNG is lossless and photographs are the hardest thing to compress losslessly. HEIC achieved 2 MB by discarding detail your eye cannot resolve; PNG is not permitted to discard anything, so it has to encode every pixel of sensor noise faithfully. It is not a fault in either format — it is the difference between a delivery format and an editing format, and it is why nobody publishes photographs as PNG.
Is PNG better quality than JPEG here?
Technically yes, practically no. PNG adds no further loss, while JPEG adds a small amount. But the HEIC was already lossy, so the detail JPEG would discard has mostly been discarded once already — you are preserving an approximation perfectly. At quality 90 the visible difference between the two outputs is essentially nil, at a fraction of the size.
Does transparency matter for a photo?
Not for a camera photo, which has no transparent pixels — every one is opaque. PNG's alpha channel is the reason to choose it for logos and UI assets, and it does nothing for you here. If transparency is why you picked PNG, the thing you are actually looking for is an editor that can cut the subject out.
Will this work for a screenshot saved as HEIC?
Yes, and this is the one case where PNG is genuinely the right target. Screenshots are flat colour and text, which is exactly what PNG compresses well and what JPEG handles badly — JPEG puts visible halos around letters. A screenshot that arrived as a HEIC will usually come out both sharper and smaller as a PNG than as a JPEG.
Will converting HEIC to PNG make the file smaller?
Usually, yes. A 12-megapixel photo is around 1.6 MB as HEIC and around 14 MB as PNG — roughly 8.8× larger. Because PNG is lossless the result depends entirely on the image content — flat colour and text compress far better than photographic detail.
Does converting HEIC to PNG lose quality?
No. PNG is lossless, so every pixel decoded from your HEIC file is stored exactly. Note that any compression artefacts already baked into the HEIC original are preserved too — converting to a lossless format cannot recover detail that was thrown away earlier.
Is transparency preserved when converting HEIC to PNG?
Yes. Both HEIC and PNG support an alpha channel, so transparent and semi-transparent pixels carry across unchanged — a logo with a cut-out background stays cut out, and soft drop shadows keep their gradient rather than picking up a white halo. Because PNG is lossless, the alpha channel is stored exactly as it was.
What happens to an animated HEIC?
Only the first frame is converted. Every conversion here decodes one frame onto a canvas and re-encodes it, so the result is always a still image — that applies to PNG as much as to any other target. To shrink an animation while keeping the motion, a video file (MP4 or WebM) is usually around a tenth of the size of the equivalent HEIC, and needs an encoder we do not ship yet.
Why can't Windows or Chrome open my HEIC file?
HEIC uses the patent-encumbered HEVC codec, which Google and Mozilla declined to license, so Chrome and Firefox cannot display it at all. Windows can, but only after installing a paid HEVC extension from the Microsoft Store. Converting to PNG sidesteps the whole problem — and you can stop the issue at the source by setting your iPhone to Settings → Camera → Formats → Most Compatible, which saves JPEGs instead.
How it works, and more about heic to png
How it works
- Add your HEIC file. Drag a HEIC file onto the drop zone, or click to browse. You can select several at once.
- Choose your settings. PNG is lossless, so there is nothing to configure — the output matches the input pixel for pixel.
- Download the PNG. Conversion runs on your device as soon as each file is added — no upload, no queue. Download each result when it is ready.
Why people convert HEIC to PNG
Usually a piece of software rather than a person setting the requirement. A design tool, a document template, a print shop or an internal system accepts PNG and nothing else, and the photo it needs to swallow came off a phone.
Use PNG when the image has more work to do — further editing, compositing, or anything that will be re-saved repeatedly, because PNG is lossless and will not degrade each time. Do not use it simply to send someone a photo. PNG stores photographic content very inefficiently, and a 2 MB HEIC routinely becomes a 15 to 25 MB PNG that is harder to email than what you started with.
Worth knowing: The size increase surprises everyone. PNG's compression is built for flat colour and sharp edges — logos, screenshots, diagrams — and photographs are the case it handles worst. If the destination will take a JPEG, send the JPEG.
HEIC and PNG side by side
| HEIC | PNG | |
|---|---|---|
| Full name | High Efficiency Image Container | Portable Network Graphics |
| Compression | Lossy | Lossless |
| Transparency | Yes — alpha channel | Yes — alpha channel |
| Animation | Yes | No |
| Browser support | Safari only. Not supported by Chrome, Firefox or Edge. | Universal — every browser since 1996 |
| Typical 12 MP photo | ~1.6 MB | ~14 MB |
| Usually used for | iPhone and iPad camera output | Screenshots, logos, icons, diagrams and anything needing transparency |
On a typical 12-megapixel phone photo, the PNG output comes out roughly 8.8× larger than the HEIC original. These are order-of-magnitude figures for one kind of image — your own results will vary a great deal, because flat colour, text and line art behave nothing like photographic detail.
What to watch out for
- Very large files for photographic content
- No animation (APNG is a separate, less-supported extension)
- Slower to decode than JPEG at the same pixel count
- Animation is lost. Only the first frame is converted — every conversion here decodes a single frame onto a canvas and re-encodes it, so the result is a still image whatever the target format. To shrink an animation and keep the motion, a video file is typically around a tenth of the size of the equivalent HEIC.
About the two formats
HEIC has been the iPhone default since iOS 11, and it is genuinely efficient — about half the size of JPEG at the same quality, with support for depth maps and Live Photos. The problem is everything that is not an Apple device: Windows needs a paid codec, most web forms reject it, and Chrome and Firefox cannot display it at all. That gap is why converting HEIC is one of the most common image tasks there is.
PNG stores every pixel exactly as it was, with no generation loss no matter how many times you re-save it. That fidelity is why it dominates screenshots, logos and UI assets, and also why it is the wrong choice for photographs — lossless compression simply cannot get a 12-megapixel photo down to a reasonable size.
Other conversions
Everything runs on your device — nothing is uploaded, so there is no size limit, no queue and no copy left on a server afterwards. There is more on how browser-based conversion works if you want the detail. Otherwise, browse every image tool.