How do I convert hundreds of HEIC files to JPG on my Windows 11 PC?

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Hello, I have a question. I recently took a lot of photos with my iPhone, but for some reason, the photos were all saved in HEIC format. After transferring them to Windows 10, I couldn’t open them and couldn’t view them at all! I tried several times but it didn’t work, which gave me a headache. I wonder if there is any simple way to convert HEIC to JPG so that I can view them normally on the computer. Has anyone encountered a similar problem?

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CopyTrans HEIC from copytrans.net  is listed on MajorGeeks.com. Haven’t used it myself, and I don’t know if the free version allows batch transformation. Give it a try.

Zig

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Zig wrote:

CopyTrans HEIC from copytrans.net  is listed on MajorGeeks.com. Haven’t used it myself, and I don’t know if the free version allows batch transformation. Give it a try.

Zig

I’ve used CopyTrans HEIC (free version) many times and still have it installed… it’s worked fine.

From its website:

However, there’s no commandline/scripting interface… so any ‘batch convert’ is still manual.

Hope this helps…

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Tried a batch edit with CopyTrans HEIC for Windows, it gave me 50 JPG files back and wiped off alll my image files from 2001 to present including documents, email and installed apps! I was then prompted to purchase the pro edition or come back each day to recover 50 files per day … I couldn’t accomplish that in my lifetime at that rate. Not sure if my files were held for ransom. Could not physically completely uninstall the app so I reset the PC, re-installing Windows 10 pro. Still have all files on original hard drive and cellphone so I can recover them, will take days. Without the backup it would be devastating. Others have stated that their phones just started saving as HEIC files without their knowledge, as is what transpired with myself. I will take the converted files as an unfortunate loss before risking losing all. Beware!

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ImagicMagick can batch convert HEIC to jpg.

{magick location}\magick mogrify -format jpg -quality 100% {file location}\*.heic

Notes:

• {magick location} = install location for ImageMagick (typically “C:\Program Files\Accessories\ImageMagick”)

• {file location} = folder containing the HEIC images (i.e. C:\Users\{username}\Pictures)

• the jpg images will be created in whatever folder you actually run the magick command from (i.e. cd C:\Temp\Pictures)

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morislac wrote:

photos were all saved in HEIC format

FastStone Image Viewer (my default viewer), and IrfanView (both free) will open HEIC files without having to convert them to JPEG.  That said, Zigs rec for conversion good.

Desktop Asus TUF X299 Mark 1, CPU: Intel Core i7-7820X Skylake-X 8-Core 3.6 GHz, RAM: 32GB, GPU: Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti 4GB. Display: Four 27" 1080p screens 2 over 2 quad.

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Alex5723

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Small addition to the above: FastStone will do batch conversions of HEIC to JPG.  Also batch resize if you want.

https://www.faststone.org/

Dell XPS17, 11th Gen Intel I7, 64gb RAM, Windows 11 Home 23H2

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TechTango

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Irfanview can do batch conversions as well. IrfanView – Official Homepage – One of the Most Popular Viewers Worldwide

--Joe

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TechTango

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morislac wrote:

Hello, I have a question. I recently took a lot of photos with my iPhone, but for some reason, the photos were all saved in HEIC format.

This the Live function of an iPhone camera that makes the same JPEG photo while making the HEIC and really is not needed if you save your photos in the JPEG format. You should see both JPEG and HEIC files for those photos taken. The Live function photos are the ones that seem to move when you first open the photo if you view them on the iPhone. Download and convert and they are a simple JPEG photo.

Open the Camera on your iPhone.
The little round icon at the upper right of your screen (as shown in the image below) is the Live function.
Tap this icon to turn the Live function off.
With the Live function off you will no longer have HEIC files created.

HTH, Dana:))

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TechTango, Alex5723, AlphaCharlie, satrow

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You can still end up with HEIC files with Live off. The main control is in Settings > Camera > Formats. At some point, “High Efficiency” became the default in iOS, but you can change it to “Most Compatible” so that new photos will be JPEGs instead.

Changing this does not automatically convert your existing “High Efficiency” photos to JPEG, but it’s possible to do so manually. In the Photos app, select the images, and then tap the share (send?) button – the little square with the up arrow. Then tap Options, choose Most Compatible, and tap Done. Finally, tap Save to Files. JPEG copies will be placed in the Files app, while the HE originals remain in photos.

Of course, if you have a lot, make sure the device storage isn’t full or nearly so.

If you so desire, you could then send the JPEG copies back to the Photos app from the Files app, by selecting them and tapping “Save N Images”. Then you’d have two copies of each in Photos. The way to tell them apart is to view one and then tap its “i” (info) button. Among the details it’ll be labeled as either HEIF or JPEG.

I verified all this on an iPhone with iOS 17.7.1.

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SB9K wrote:

Changing this does not automatically convert your existing “High Efficiency” photos to JPEG, but it’s possible to do so manually. In the Photos app, select the images, and then tap the share (send?) button – the little square with the up arrow. Then tap Options, choose Most Compatible, and tap Done. Finally, tap Save to Files. JPEG copies will be placed in the Files app, while the HE originals remain in photos.

Strange, on my phone long time ago (now on iOS 17.7) I just turned the Live Function off and never changed that setting. I just looked and that Camera setting was set to Most Compatible. I don’t know if that was the default setting or turning Live off changed that setting, but I never changed that setting.

“JPEG copies will be placed in the Files app, while the HE originals remain in photos.”

This is not true on my phone. All the photos in the photo app or anywhere else on my phone are JPEG and there are no “HE” files on it. I have software that scanned the entire phone and it found only JPEG photo files.

All I had to do to stop the HEIC files was to turn the Live function off.

HTH, Dana:))

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Myst, satrow

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JPEG copies will go into the Files app only by performing the steps in the same paragraph that statement was part of, which was about how to manually convert existing photos to JPEG on the device itself.

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On my iPhone 13, if I have the Camera in Settings on “Most Compatible”, it will always be a JPEG whether or not I have “Live” On or Off. Having the Camera set to High Efficiency in Settings, it makes no difference if I turn “Live” Off. It will always come through as HEIF. In other words, if I simply turn “Live” Off before taking a shot, it will not make it a JPEG unless my Settings are at “Most Compatible”.

MacOS iPadOS and sometimes SOS

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Drcard:)), satrow

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Myst wrote:

On my iPhone 13, if I have the Camera in Settings on “Most Compatible”, it will always be a JPEG whether or not I have “Live” On or Off. Having the Camera set to High Efficiency in Settings, it makes no difference if I turn “Live” Off. It will always come through as HEIF. In other words, if I simply turn “Live” Off before taking a shot, it will not make it a JPEG unless my Settings are at “Most Compatible”.

I confirm that the Most Compatible setting is what is stopping the HEIF format from being made and not the LIVE button. I’m sorry that I mislead anyone, but I posted what I remembered what I did that got rid of HEIF files.
I do not remember changing or even viewing that setting. All I remember is turning that Live button off (which must have been on in Settings as it never has come back on). I do remember quite clearly that I had both HEIF and JPEG files. The meta data on each showed they were taken at the same time, so it appeared that it was making both formats of a photo taken. Conversion to JPEG yielded the same photo with less resolution. All I did was turn off Live function in the Camera app and I no longer got the HEIF files and just the JPEG.

HTH, Dana:))

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Myst, satrow

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Just so you are aware… counter-intuitively, you need to turn the setting for Live Photo ON just to turn Live Photo OFF in a section of the settings for Camera…, otherwise Live Photo will just keep turning itself back on again after you’ve turned it off.

Do the following to turn Live Photo OFF permanently:

1. Open Settings > Camera > Preserve Settings > Live Photo then toggle the Live Photo switch to ON (green):

2. Close the Settings app then open the Camera app and turn Live Photo to OFF by touching the icon:

Now close the Camera app… and your preference for Live Photo to be OFF each time you use the Camera app will now be preserved.

Hope this helps…

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Microfix, satrow

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XnConvert and it’s cousins works very well for batch image convert projects.  Can also change a lot of other aspects as well.   Freeware.

 

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Cybertooth

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