What Are HEIC Files?

Since iOS 11 on the iPhone the default file format for photos has been HEIC. This is a new image file format that gives better compression and image quality than JPEG. On the Mac, the Photos app and macOS understands HEIC since High Sierra. In the Photos app you can use either HEIC or JPEG, and can export either as well. Other apps and devices also support HEIC.

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Today let's talk about the HEIC file format. You may not know what that is but you're probably using it.
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So HEIC is Apple's file extension for the HEIF file format. HEIF stands for high efficiency image file format. Basically it's a replacement for JPEG. You probably know what JPEG is. JPEG you'd think of as the file format for images. But JPEG is pretty old and new advances in compression mean that we can do better. So Apple has adopted a standard that was established in 2015 for HEIF to replace JPEG. What this means is when you take a picture on your iPhone it'll compress better so you have smaller file sizes. But it is a different file format than JPEG. Which means older machines and machines that are using out of date software will not be able to open, read, or save in HEIC or HEIF format.
So HEIC was introduced in iOS 11 and in High Sierra on the Mac. Here I am in Photos and if I look at these images here I have the titles turned on where it's showing the file name. You can see it .HEIC. If I were to select one and do Command i to get information you can see here not only is the file name HEIC but I look here at the format and you can see it says HEIF format. So I know these are using that new format.
If I go to export these from Photos I may end up with a JPEG and I may end up with HEIC. If I go to File and Export and I do Unmodified Original I'll end up with HEIC, the actual file. But if I do a regular Export then I am converting it to JPEG. Also if you drag and drop out of Photos you'll end up with a JPEG file as well. Otherwise in the Photos app it doesn't really matter if it's JPEG or HEIC. You'll be able to go in, Edit the image, and do things with it in either format.
So here's a folder with a bunch of files that I've exported from Photos. I've exported it as originals and as JPEGs. You can see here the difference in file size. This one here is 1.1 MB as HEIC but the equivalent in JPEG is 1.7. So you're definitely getting better compression. It's hard to say if the quality would be better or not because it's really quality versus file size. So what you're getting kind of is the same quality but a smaller file size. You could, of course, say well let's compare the same file size. In that case you're definitely going to get better quality out of something that's the same file size in HEIC over JPEG.
Now if you're using High Sierra or iOS 11 or better on all of your devices then you can just go ahead and use HEIC. But if you have some device or software that's older it may not understand HEIC and you may need to convert to JPEG. So you can see how easy it is to export from Photos in JPEG. You can also do the same thing using Preview. If you open this up in Preview here I can easily export and choose JPEG as the export format. 
HEIC can be read by the most current versions of apps like PhotoShop, Acorn, and Pixelmator. Strangely enough PhotoShop can read HEIC but it can't export. Whereas Acorn and Pixelmator have no problem. Even Preview can do that. You can go into JPEG and go to File, Export and export this out as HEIC format to compress it a little bit.
If you want to know some history and details you can go to the HEIF page on wikipedia and it has lots of information there. Apple also has a page about this that goes back to iOS 11 when they started using it.
Another thing about HEIC is it can contain a series of images. It'll actually compress it so that the differences between each images are saved. So it doesn't have to save completely new versions of each one. So it's ideal for the live photos feature. This is how you're able to get a short video along with your photos and be able to choose a new one as the main photo without loosing quality.
Now you can turn this off on your iPhone. So if you have a lot of older devices and HEIC is just not working for you right now then you can go into Settings, Camera, and then Format. There you've got a setting to be able to turn off HEIC use for now. Although this really is ideal for iPhone users, especially since so many complain about photos taking up too much space. So having photos taking up a lot less space but keeping the space or even better quality is a big deal.
As for outside of Apple HEIC is supported by the most recent version of Windows 10. It's supported by the most recent version of Android and it's supported by lots of software as I've shown. So it's quickly becoming the new standard for images.
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Comments: 6 Responses to “What Are HEIC Files?”

Janice McLeod

5 years ago

I have a number of family “legacy” photos saved in the .tiff format on an external hard drive which I can easily view and use on my old “legacy” computer. However, I’m considering buying a new MacBook Pro once the newest version is launched and I imagine will also carry on using the HEIC format. Would these .tiff files I have saved also be able to be read by this HEIC file reader?

Gary Rosenzweig

Janice: HEIC and TIFF are different formats. There is no "HEIC file reader" -- it is just one of the many formats that macOS and apps can open, display and save (like JPG, PNG, etc). I'd imagine TIFF will be a useable format for a long time now as some graphics pros still use it. But it may not be the most efficient format for normal photos.

N O Van

Hi Gary. I've found that not all email apps (Gmail e.g.) support HEIC. I've been tracking this down for months now. Apple Tech didn't know. To send a photo via my Gmail account from Photos on my iphone, I have no choices for jpg sizes. Only HEIC. This results in a HUGE file: 2.2 MG! Sending a photo via Mail Account gives me all the jpg options. The same HEIC file, sent as a low jpg is only 22K! A huge difference. Help!

So...is HEIC platform-dependent? I would love to be able to send photos

N O Van: Older browsers and email clients won't support HEIC, that's right. It didn't exist when they were created. So just send jpeg files in those cases. When you compress a JPEG to something like 22K, you are sending a much smaller version of it, which is fine for some uses. 2.2MB is normal for a full resolution image, which is what is needed in some cases too. It would certainly be more than 2.2MB if it was a full-resolution JPEG.

Nick

hi Gary
I'm using High Sierra but the photos are showing up as JPEG not HEIC, also tried exporting them and HEIC is not an option.

Nick: What camera did you use to take the photos and when? If it is an older iPhone or non-iPhone it would have taken JPEG photos and that's what you'll see. Or any iPhone before iOS 11.

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What Are HEIC Files?

Comments: 6 Responses to “What Are HEIC Files?”

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