Why iPhone Photos Won't Open on Windows (and How to Fix It)

Since iOS 11, iPhones save photos in HEIC (High Efficiency Image Container) by default instead of JPG. It's a genuinely better format — smaller files at the same visual quality — but support for it outside Apple's ecosystem is still inconsistent.

Where HEIC breaks

• Windows can't open HEIC files without installing a separate codec extension.
• Most Android phones and older apps don't recognize the format at all.
• Many web upload forms (job applications, print services, old CMS platforms) simply reject it.

How the conversion works

Converting HEIC to JPG or PNG re-encodes the image data into a format nearly everything supports. Filenary does this entirely in your browser — your photos are decoded and re-encoded locally using WebAssembly, so nothing is uploaded anywhere.

Does converting lose quality?

There's a small amount of recompression because HEIC and JPG use different codecs, but the tool defaults to a high quality setting (92%), so the difference is not visible in everyday photos. Resolution is fully preserved.

Converting multiple photos at once

If you're dumping an entire camera roll export, you don't need to do this one photo at a time — drop in multiple HEIC files together and download them individually or as a single ZIP.