How to Convert HEIC to JPG on Mac (3 Built-In Ways)

iPhones shoot HEIC by default — great for storage, annoying the moment a website, client, or old app refuses the file. Your Mac converts HEIC to JPG with tools it already has. Here are the three built-in routes, from fastest to most automated.

1. Finder's Convert Image Quick Action (fastest)

1. Select one or a hundred .heic files in Finder.
2. Right-click and choose Quick Actions → Convert Image.
3. Set Format to JPEG, pick an image size (keep Actual Size for full quality), and decide whether to keep metadata with Preserve metadata — uncheck it to strip location data from photos you're posting publicly.
4. Click Convert to JPEG.

New .jpeg copies appear next to the originals — nothing is overwritten, so "undo" is just deleting whichever version you don't want. This handles batches effortlessly and is the route to remember: it works from any Finder window, including your Desktop and the Downloads folder where AirDropped iPhone photos usually land.

2. Preview's Export (quality control)

When you want to choose the compression level:

1. Open the HEIC file in Preview.
2. Choose File → Export…
3. Set Format to JPEG and drag the Quality slider — higher quality, bigger file. The estimated size updates live.
4. Click Save. The original HEIC stays on disk untouched.

Preview does batches too: open several HEICs at once, press Cmd+A in the thumbnail sidebar, then choose File → Export Selected Images… and pick JPEG under Options.

3. A Shortcuts recipe (convert on demand forever)

Build it once and JPG conversion lives in your right-click menu permanently:

1. Open Shortcuts, click + for a new shortcut.
2. In the shortcut's ⓘ details panel, enable Use as Quick Action → Finder.
3. Add the action Convert Image (set to JPEG, and set its input to the shortcut input), then add Save File.
4. Name it "HEIC → JPG". It now appears under Quick Actions when you right-click files in Finder.

Prefer to stop the problem at the source? On your iPhone, Settings → Camera → Formats → Most Compatible makes the camera shoot JPEG in the first place — at roughly double the storage cost.

HEIC vs JPG: what you're trading

Worth ten seconds before you convert your whole library. HEIC (Apple's name for HEIF files) stores the same visual quality as JPEG in roughly half the space, and supports features JPEG can't, like 10-bit color. The only thing wrong with it is compatibility: older Windows machines, many web upload forms, and plenty of non-Apple software still reject it.

• Converting for one upload? Convert the copies, keep the HEIC originals — they're your smaller, higher-fidelity masters.
• Converting a batch to share? Uncheck Preserve metadata in the Quick Action if you don't want GPS coordinates traveling with the photos.
• Seeing washed-out colors after converting? Some very old apps mishandle the wide-gamut color profile iPhones embed. Exporting from Preview at high quality usually looks right everywhere.

And if a photo lives in the Photos app rather than a folder, skip Finder entirely: select it and choose File → Export → Export 1 Photo…, set the kind to JPEG, and Photos writes a converted copy wherever you point it — the version in your library stays HEIC.

Converting more than a handful?

All three routes here scale to dozens of files, but if you're clearing out months of iPhone photos — or mixing HEICs with PNGs and screenshots — the batch-specific tricks are worth learning, including the one-line Terminal version. See how to batch convert images on Mac for the full toolkit.