HEIC to PNG — Save iPhone Photo Pixels Losslessly Online, Keep Transparency, Ready for Editing and Archiving
HEIC to PNG is for people who still intend to work on the image. HEIC is a lossy container designed to save space in a camera, and every view and every save means decoding it again; PNG writes every decoded pixel down exactly as it is, loses no detail, supports an alpha channel, and can be read directly by virtually every design application, editing timeline and cloud drive. Converting an iPhone HEIC to PNG means decoding it completely once in the browser and then sealing the result without further compression, so later colour grading, cut-outs, layer work or repeated saves will not degrade the picture the way a JPG would. The price is a noticeably larger file — a single phone photo often runs to several MB — so compress it again before putting it on a web page. Import several images at once, see the dimensions and output size for each in the batch list, and step through the preview with Previous and Next to compare the decoded original on the left with the PNG result on the right. PNG is only the default; the dropdown switches to JPG or WebP at any time, and already-decoded images re-export automatically without being imported again. HEIC decoding tries the browser’s native capability first and falls back to a local WASM decoder, with nothing uploaded and the page still working when the network is switched off. PNG also has no animation, so a burst or a Live Photo contributes only its still frame.
Import images
Target format
All three formats reuse the same decoded pixels, so switching re-exports automatically — no need to import again.
PNG keeps every pixel losslessly and preserves alpha. Best for further editing, assets and archiving, but usually the largest file.
PNG is lossless, so there is no quality setting for it.
Some HEIC files store orientation as a container property and decode sideways. Correct it here if needed.
Leave it empty to keep the original name; the extension is replaced with the output format.
Preview and export
Batch list
0 / 0 DoneNo images imported yet.
How to use
- Drag HEIC or HEIF photos into the import area, or click Choose images to select several at once; Ctrl+V pastes a screenshot too. The tool reads the file header to identify the real container, not the extension.
- Leave the target format on its default PNG. There is no quality slider to set because the output is lossless; first check that the edges and gradients match in the two preview panes.
- If a photo decodes sideways or upside down, pick an angle under Extra rotation. EXIF orientation is straightened automatically where possible, and a manual fix covers the container properties that decoders disagree on.
- Use Previous and Next to check each image, then download the current one, download individual rows from the batch list, or pack everything into a ZIP. PNG files tend to be large, so for a web page switch the dropdown to WebP and export once more.
Frequently asked questions
Will converting to PNG make the photo sharper?
No. The HEVC intra coding inside HEIC is already lossy, and detail that was discarded cannot be recreated; what PNG guarantees is that there will be no further loss from this point on, writing the current decoded version down pixel for pixel. Its value shows up in the workflow that follows: colour grading, cut-outs, repeated saves and repeated exports never accumulate the blocking and softness a JPG would. That makes it a good working intermediate or a long-term archive copy.
Do transparent backgrounds and soft edges survive?
They do. PNG stores per-pixel opacity in a full alpha channel, so everything from fully transparent areas to feathered semi-transparent edges is preserved, and the checkerboard lets you verify it. This is completely different from JPG, which has to composite transparency onto a solid colour. If the HEIC original contained no transparency, the output will not gain any — the whole frame will simply be opaque.
Why is the output so much bigger than the HEIC?
Because the two formats were built with opposite goals. HEIC uses intra prediction and quantisation to record only what it failed to guess, which is ideal for saving space in a camera. PNG uses lossless Deflate, and the fine noise, texture and gradients in a photograph are almost impossible to predict, so they have to be stored honestly — a phone photo often reaches several MB. The batch list shows the original and output sizes side by side, so check the numbers before deciding to keep this version.
Is ten-bit HDR and wide colour preserved?
Web canvases generally work in eight-bit sRGB, so the browser applies tone mapping and a colour-space conversion when decoding ten-bit HDR or P3 wide-gamut content, and the brightest highlights can be flattened. This tool writes a conventional eight-bit PNG and does not fake a higher bit depth container. If that original dynamic range matters to you, keep the HEIC file and treat the PNG as an editable copy, not a replacement negative.
Do shooting time, location and camera model carry over?
Not automatically. Conversion decodes and re-encodes into a brand-new file, and the browser canvas offers no way to write the full EXIF set back into a PNG — which also conveniently avoids sending location data to someone by mistake. Keep the original HEIC if you need the capture parameters; if you only wanted a clean asset, having the metadata stripped is one less thing to worry about.
What is it
At the heart of PNG lies Deflate: filtering first rewrites each scanline as differences from neighbouring pixels, then LZ77 and Huffman coding take over. It is therefore strictly lossless, and reading and writing the same pixel array any number of times changes nothing. HEIC is different: it is a container based on the ISO base media file format, usually holding an HEVC intra-coded image whose quantisation table has already discarded some detail for good. Conversion can faithfully preserve that decoded version, but it cannot restore what was lost, so a PNG gives you “no further loss” rather than “sharper than the original”. Bit depth deserves attention too: many phone HEIC files carry ten-bit HDR or wide-gamut information, while a web canvas is generally eight-bit sRGB, so decoding performs tone mapping and a colour-space conversion and very bright highlights can be flattened — keep the HEIC original if you need the full dynamic range. PNG supports a complete alpha channel, so transparent and semi-transparent edges survive intact, and it also supports indexed colour and interlacing, but it does not automatically write shooting time, camera model or location from EXIF into the new file. Every pixel is kept, and the cost is a file that is often several times larger than the HEIC, especially for photos, gradients and noise.
Origin & history
Go back to 1994, when Unisys began asserting patent licensing fees over the LZW compression used by GIF, and the web community abruptly realised that its most universal lossless image format might start costing money. Thomas Boutell opened a discussion on a mailing list, and within weeks a group of engineers had assembled a replacement specification: the already-public Deflate algorithm, a full alpha channel, gamma correction and cyclic redundancy checks. It became a W3C recommendation in 1996 and ISO/IEC 15948 in 2003, and the name PNG is most often explained as a recursive acronym with a degree of self-mockery. It then settled firmly into icons, screenshots, line art and editing intermediates; libpng found its way into almost every image toolchain, and APNG later added animation, yet the core specification barely changed in thirty years. The other thread starts in the 2010s: HEVC was finalised in 2013, MPEG published HEIF in 2015 on top of the ISO base media file format, packing intra images, bursts, depth maps and rotation properties into one box, and in 2017 Apple made HEIC the default output of iOS 11 — the first time phone makers handed ordinary users a high-compression lossy container at massive scale. The gaps in the ecosystem appeared immediately: design software, older browsers, content management systems and print workflows did not recognise it, while online converters asked for the original to be uploaded. The real solution again came from the browser itself: canvas had offered lossless PNG export for a very long time, and once libheif was compiled to WebAssembly, local HEIC decoding completed the pair. For the first time a user could take a phone photo that had already lost detail once and fix it, without a network connection, into a lossless file anyone can open. No new algorithm appears in this history — it is a format born thirty years ago for the freedom to use, connected to a container born ten years ago for the freedom to store more. Their attitudes to metadata are just as opposed: HEIF gathers orientation, depth maps and burst sequences into the box, while PNG describes the pixels honestly and leaves everything else to other specifications.
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