Will PNG give better quality than JPG?

Marginally, and almost certainly not visibly. PNG preserves the decoded HEIC exactly, while JPG at quality 90 introduces a small amount of new compression. Side by side at 100% zoom on a large screen you might find a difference in a few fine-detail areas; at normal viewing sizes you will not. That tiny edge costs you ten times the file size, which is rarely a trade worth making.

Why is the PNG so much bigger than the HEIC?

Because they were built for opposite jobs. HEIC uses modern video compression to describe a photograph in as few bytes as possible; PNG stores every pixel exactly and squeezes only what compresses cleanly, which for a photograph is very little. Add that photographs have almost no repeating patterns, and a ten- to fifteen-fold increase is normal rather than a sign that something went wrong.

Will the background be transparent?

No. PNG is capable of transparency, but a photograph has none to carry over, so the result is fully opaque. What you get is a format that can hold transparency once you create it yourself in an image editor. If removing a background is your actual goal, this conversion is only the first step.

Is my photo uploaded to your server?

Yes, and it has to be: no browser can decode HEIC, so the file is converted on our server. It is deleted automatically within an hour, and immediately when you download the result. We never look at it and never keep a copy. Every other converter on this site runs entirely inside your browser, and each page says which of the two applies.

HEIC to PNG Converter - Free, Lossless Decoding

Tools / / Converters / Image Converters / HEIC to PNG

HEIC to PNG Converter

Drag and drop your file here, or click to browse

HEIC → PNG

Maximum file size: 20 MB

Your files stay private

HEIC needs decoding on our server. The file is converted there and deleted automatically within one hour; downloading removes it at once.

About Converting HEIC to PNG

Before anything else: if you only need the photo to open on a PC, in an email or in an upload form, convert it to JPG instead. The result will look identical and the file will be a fraction of the size. PNG is the right answer to a narrower question — one about editing, or about a program that refuses to accept anything else.

How to convert HEIC to PNG

1 Drop your .heic or .heif photo onto the upload area.
2 Press Convert — there is nothing to configure, because PNG is lossless.
3 Download the PNG. Check the size before you commit — it will be far larger than the HEIC.

Lossless decoding, but nothing is recovered

We decode the HEIC to a lossless intermediate before writing the PNG, so the result carries exactly the pixels Apple’s encoder produced — no extra compression step slipped in between. That is a real technical difference, and it is worth knowing that many converters skip it. But it changes nothing about the photo itself: HEIC is a lossy format, so the detail it discarded when the shutter fired is gone for good. Lossless here means nothing further is lost, not that anything comes back.

When PNG is the right call

Three situations justify the size. First, editing: if you are going to crop, retouch and re-save several times, PNG stops each save from adding fresh compression damage. Second, software that demands it — some design tools, print templates and upload forms accept nothing else. Third, cut-out work: you need a format with an alpha channel before you can erase a background, and PNG is the standard choice. Outside those cases, JPG will serve you better.

Expect a very large file

A 2 MB HEIC photo commonly becomes a 20 to 30 MB PNG. HEIC is one of the most efficient photo formats ever shipped; PNG stores every pixel individually and was designed in the 1990s for graphics, not photographs. The two sit at opposite ends of the scale, which is why this particular conversion produces the biggest jump in size of any pair on this site. It will also not give you transparency: a converted photo is fully opaque, ready to be edited but not cut out.

HEIC to PNG — Frequently Asked Questions

For nine people out of ten, JPG. It opens everywhere, looks the same to the eye, and produces a file a fraction of the size. Choose PNG only if a program specifically requires it, if you are heading into repeated editing, or if you need an alpha channel for cut-out work. If you are unsure, start with JPG — you can always convert again.

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