HEIC to PNG Converter: Convert iPhone Photos to PNG Online

Convert HEIC to PNG

When you need lossless quality from your iPhone photos, PNG is the right output format. Unlike JPEG, PNG compression preserves every pixel without any quality degradation. This tool decodes HEIC files using WebAssembly in your browser and exports them as PNG, with no upload or server processing.

When PNG Is the Right Choice

HEIC to PNG makes sense in specific situations where lossless fidelity matters more than file size.

Further editing

If you plan to crop, color-correct, composite, or otherwise manipulate the image after conversion, PNG preserves the full pixel data. Every time you save a JPEG, the lossy encoder discards more information. Editing a PNG ten times produces the same quality as editing it once. Use PNG as your working format, then export to a compressed format when the editing is done.

Screenshots and UI captures

iPhone screenshots saved as HEIC contain sharp text, UI elements, and solid color regions. JPEG compression introduces visible artifacts around high-contrast edges and text. PNG handles these patterns cleanly because its lossless compression is particularly efficient with large areas of uniform color.

Images with transparency

HEIC supports alpha channels, and some edited or composited images include transparent regions. PNG preserves this transparency. JPEG does not support transparency at all, so converting a transparent HEIC to JPG fills the transparent areas with a solid color (typically white or black).

Archival

If you are converting an old HEIC library for long-term storage and want to avoid any generational quality loss, PNG gives you an exact pixel-level representation of the decoded HEIC content. The files will be large, but no information is lost.

The File Size Trade-off

PNG’s lossless compression cannot match the compression ratios of HEVC (the codec inside HEIC) or JPEG. Expect the PNG output to be substantially larger than the HEIC input:

The exact ratio depends on image content. Photographs with complex textures and gradients compress poorly in PNG. Screenshots with flat colors and text can be surprisingly compact.

This size difference is why PNG is rarely the right format for final web delivery. A 20 MB PNG takes several seconds to load even on a fast connection.

How the Conversion Works

The decoding pipeline is identical to HEIC-to-JPG conversion, with a different export step:

1. Your browser reads the HEIC file bytes using the FileReader API
2. A WebAssembly build of the libheif library decompresses the HEVC-encoded pixel data
3. The raw pixels are drawn onto an HTML Canvas element
4. The Canvas exports the image as PNG using canvas.toBlob('image/png')

PNG does not have a quality slider because the compression is lossless. The PNG encoder’s internal compression level affects file size slightly, but the decoded pixels are always identical regardless of compression level.

Since the entire process runs in your browser, your photos never leave your device. HEIC files from iPhones contain EXIF metadata including GPS coordinates, and the Canvas pipeline strips this metadata from the PNG output.

Recommended Workflow

For most users, the optimal workflow uses PNG as an intermediate format rather than a final output:

1. Convert HEIC to PNG using this tool to get a lossless, universally compatible file
2. Edit in any image editor (Photoshop, GIMP, Figma, Canva) without worrying about quality loss during saves
3. Export the final version in the appropriate format for its destination:
   • WebP for web pages (smallest file size with good quality)
   • JPG for email, social media, and maximum compatibility
   • PNG only if the final image needs transparency or pixel-perfect rendering

This approach avoids the double-lossy problem (HEVC to JPEG) while keeping your final deliverables at reasonable file sizes.

HEIC to PNG vs. HEIC to JPG

The choice comes down to what you are doing with the output:

If you just need to share photos from your iPhone and file size matters, HEIC to JPG is the more practical choice. If you need the highest fidelity for editing or archival, PNG is the right target.

For other output formats like WebP, or to convert in the opposite direction, use the main Image Converter. To encode converted images as Base64 strings for embedding in code, use the Base64 Encoder.