How to Stop Your iPhone from Taking HEIC Photos

Published July 6, 2026

If you're tired of converting HEIC files every time you move photos off your iPhone, you can tell the camera to shoot JPG directly. There are two ways to do it, and they behave differently — here's both, plus the trade-off you should know before switching.

Option 1: Shoot JPG permanently

1. Open Settings on your iPhone.
2. Scroll to Camera and tap it.
3. Tap Formats (usually the first item).
4. Select Most Compatible instead of "High Efficiency".

From now on, every new photo is saved as JPG. Existing photos remain HEIC — this setting only affects photos taken after the change.

Option 2: Keep HEIC on the phone, transfer as JPG

This is the smarter middle ground most people don't know about:

1. Open Settings → Photos.
2. Scroll to the bottom, to Transfer to Mac or PC.
3. Select Automatic.

Your iPhone keeps storing photos as space-saving HEIC, but when you connect it to a computer with a cable, it converts them to JPG on the fly during transfer. Best of both worlds — with one caveat: it only works for cable transfers, not for AirDrop, email, or cloud sync.

The trade-off of switching to JPG

JPG files are roughly twice the size of HEIC. If your iPhone has plenty of free storage, you'll never notice. If you're constantly at the edge of a full phone or paying for iCloud storage, staying on HEIC (Option 2, or converting when needed) is the more economical choice.

What about the HEIC photos you already have?

Neither setting converts your existing library. For those, the fastest route is a batch conversion — select the photos, transfer them, and convert them all at once in your browser:

Should you switch at all?

If your photos mostly stay within Apple devices and iCloud, HEIC is genuinely better — keep it. If you regularly send photos to Windows PCs, upload to websites, or share with Android users, switching to Most Compatible removes a recurring annoyance for the price of some storage space.