HEIC to PNG
Convert HEIC photos from iPhone to lossless PNG in your browser. Free and private: no upload, no account, no file limit.
About this tool
PNG is the right target when you plan to edit an iPhone photo further: it is lossless, so converting HEIC to PNG and then editing does not stack compression artifacts the way JPG does. This tool decodes the HEIC in your browser and re-encodes it as PNG without your photo ever leaving your device.
Expect the PNG to be noticeably larger than the original HEIC. That is normal: HEIC is a modern compressed format and PNG stores every pixel exactly. If you just need to share or upload a photo, HEIC to JPG produces much smaller files.
Common uses
- Prepare an iPhone photo for editing without introducing JPG compression
- Get a screenshot or graphic out of HEIC into a format design tools accept
- Archive a photo in a lossless, universally readable format
Automate via API
The same conversion is available as a REST endpoint for scripts, pipelines, and backends. POST the file, get the converted file back:
curl -X POST https://formatably.com/api/v1/tools/heic-to-png \ -H "X-Api-Key: YOUR_API_KEY" \ --data-binary @photo.heic \ -o photo.png
Direct requests accept up to 4 MB; the large-file flow handles up to 100 MB. Both are covered in the API documentation · Get an API key
HEIC notes
HEIC (High Efficiency Image Container) is the default photo format on iPhones and iPads since iOS 11. It stores photos at roughly half the size of JPEG at the same quality, but support outside the Apple ecosystem is still patchy.
- Windows, older Android devices, and most web upload forms reject HEIC files.
- A .heif extension is the same container; both open the same way here.
- Live Photos convert as their still frame; the motion part is a separate video track.
PNG notes
PNG is the lossless workhorse: screenshots, logos, UI graphics, and anything needing transparency. Every device and program on earth opens it. The tradeoff is size: photos stored as PNG are several times larger than JPEG.
- PNG is lossless, so converting into PNG never loses quality, but converting a photo to PNG can triple its size.
- Transparency is preserved in PNG; JPG has no transparency at all.
Frequently asked questions
Why is the PNG so much bigger than my HEIC file?
HEIC uses modern lossy compression; PNG is lossless and stores every pixel exactly. A 2 MB HEIC photo commonly becomes a 15-25 MB PNG. If size matters more than losslessness, convert to JPG instead.
Does the PNG keep transparency?
Yes. If the HEIC contains an alpha channel (rare for camera photos, common for exported graphics), it is preserved in the PNG. Camera photos have no transparency to begin with, so they convert as normal opaque images.
Are my files uploaded to a server?
No. The conversion runs entirely in your browser using WebAssembly and the canvas API; your files never leave your device. There are no ads and no trackers on tool pages. You can verify this yourself: open your browser's developer tools, watch the Network tab while converting, and you will see no upload requests. It even works offline once the page has loaded.
Is there a file size limit?
In the browser there is no hard limit; you are bounded only by your device's memory, and files of a few hundred megabytes are usually fine. The REST API accepts files up to 4 MB in a direct request, or up to 100 MB using the large-file upload flow described in the API docs.
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