How to Make Your iPhone Take JPG Photos Instead of HEIC

September 28, 2026 · 5 min read

If you're forever converting iPhone photos so other people can open them, there's a way to stop the problem at the source: tell your camera to save JPG instead of HEIC in the first place. It's a two-tap change buried in Settings, and once it's on, every new photo lands in the format that opens everywhere.

Here's exactly how to do it, what you gain and give up, and the one thing this switch won't fix.

The short answer

Open Settings → Camera → Formats and tap "Most Compatible." From that moment on, your iPhone captures photos as JPG and video as H.264 — formats that open on any phone, computer, or website without extra software. Your existing HEIC photos stay as they are, so for those you'll still want a quick converter like HeicQuick, which turns HEIC into JPG right in your browser with nothing uploaded.

Why your iPhone shoots HEIC in the first place

Since 2017, iPhones and iPads have defaulted to HEIC (High Efficiency Image Container) to save space — a HEIC photo is often about half the size of the same shot as JPG, at similar visual quality. That's great for your storage and your iCloud bill, but HEIC is still far less universal than JPG. Windows needs an extra codec to open it, many upload forms reject it, and older apps don't recognize it at all. If you want the full background, see what is a HEIC file.

For a lot of people, the compatibility headache isn't worth the storage savings — so they'd rather shoot plain JPG and never think about it again.

How to switch your camera to JPG

The setting takes seconds:

1. Open the Settings app.
2. Tap Camera.
3. Tap Formats (at the top).
4. Choose Most Compatible.

That's it. The two options mean:

• High Efficiency — the default. Photos save as HEIC and video as HEVC (H.265). Smaller files, but the compatibility issues above.
• Most Compatible — photos save as JPEG and video as H.264. Larger files, but they open on virtually anything.

From now on, every photo your camera takes will be a JPG. There's no app to install and no account to create — it's a built-in Apple setting.

What the switch does not change

This is the part people miss: flipping to Most Compatible only affects new photos. Everything already in your library stays in HEIC. If you switch today, the thousand photos you took last year are still .heic files, and you'll still hit the "nobody can open this" wall when you share them.

For those existing photos, you have two easy options that don't touch your camera setting at all:

• On the phone itself, there are four built-in ways to convert HEIC to JPG on your iPhone — no app needed.
• On a computer, drag the files onto HeicQuick's HEIC to JPG converter and download JPGs. It handles a whole folder at once, and because the conversion runs inside your browser, nothing is uploaded — the photos never leave your device.

The trade-offs of shooting JPG

Switching to Most Compatible is the right call for many people, but it's worth knowing what you're trading:

• Bigger files. JPGs take up noticeably more space than HEIC — often close to double — so your library and iCloud storage will fill faster.
• Some advanced modes need High Efficiency. A few of the camera's more demanding features (certain high-frame-rate and high-dynamic-range video options, and Apple's ProRAW) rely on the efficient formats. If you use those, you may see them limited or greyed out in Most Compatible mode. For everyday photos and standard video, you won't notice a thing.
• You lose some HEIC-only extras. HEIC can store richer color depth and multiple frames in one file. Most casual shooters never use these, but they're part of what the efficient format buys you. For a deeper look at the technology, see HEIF and HEVC explained.

If the storage hit bothers you, there's a middle path: leave the camera on High Efficiency for the space savings and just convert copies to JPG when you actually need to share them. Many people find that's the best of both worlds.

A related setting worth knowing

There's a second option that controls what happens when you move photos to a computer by cable. Go to Settings → Photos, scroll to Transfer to Mac or PC, and you'll see:

• Automatic — converts photos to a compatible format (JPG) as they transfer.
• Keep Originals — sends the untouched HEIC files.

Setting this to Automatic means that even if your camera keeps shooting HEIC, the photos arrive on your PC as JPGs. It's a handy backstop if you'd rather not change how the camera captures.

Does converting to JPG hurt quality?

A fair worry — but in practice, no. At normal quality settings you won't see a visible difference between a HEIC original and its JPG copy. The photo you print, post, or send looks the same to the eye.

The bottom line

If HEIC compatibility is a recurring annoyance, switch your camera to Most Compatible and shoot JPG from now on — it's two taps and it works everywhere. Just remember it only affects new photos, so you'll still want to convert the HEIC files already in your library.

Need to clear out the old ones? Convert your HEIC files to JPG with HeicQuick — free, private, and running entirely in your browser. Prefer a lossless copy for editing, or the smallest possible files for the web? Try HEIC to PNG or HEIC to WebP instead, or open the main converter to pick whatever you need. On a Windows PC? Our open HEIC on Windows guide has you covered.