HEIC to PNG Converter
Need a lossless file or an image with transparency? Convert HEIC to PNG locally.
Drop your HEIC or HEIF files here
or choose files — up to 100 at once, 100 MB each
No upload. Files are processed in your browser.
Files never leave your device · EXIF and GPS removed
Works on Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Edge · No installation
HEIC to PNG produces a lossless image, which is the right choice when the file will be edited again or needs transparency. The trade-off is size: for a 12 MP photo the PNG is typically 10–15× larger than the HEIC it came from.
PNG is lossless: what you get out is exactly what was decoded, with no further compression artifacts. That makes it the better choice when you plan to edit the image again, or when you need an alpha channel.
Because PNG does not throw away data, a 12 MP photo that arrives as a 1.5 MB HEIC leaves as 15–25 MB — roughly ten times the size. For photos you only intend to view or share, JPG is the smaller and faster option.
Last reviewed November 2026
When PNG is the right output
You will edit it again
Repeated JPG saves compound artifacts. PNG survives round-trips without degrading.
You need transparency
HEIC can carry an alpha channel; PNG keeps it, JPG cannot.
Screenshots and graphics
Flat colours, text and UI elements stay crisp in PNG.
How to convert HEIC → PNG
- Add HEIC files. Drop them or use the file picker. Everything stays on your device.
- Choose PNG. PNG ignores the quality slider — it is always lossless.
- Download. Expect larger files. For sharing, convert the same photo to JPG instead.
What the PNG actually weighs
| What you start with | PNG output | Same photo as JPG | Why the gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12 MP iPhone photo, 1.5 MB HEIC | 15–22 MB | ≈1.2 MB | PNG stores pixels; HEIC stores a prediction |
| 12 MP photo, low light / noisy | 22–30 MB | ≈2 MB | Noise is expensive to compress without loss |
| Screenshot, flat interface | 300–600 KB | ≈120 KB | Large flat areas compress well |
| Graphic with transparency | Keeps the alpha channel | Flattened onto white | JPG has no alpha at all |
What actually happens when you ask for PNG
PNG is often described as "HEIC without compression", which is wrong in both directions. The browser first decodes the HEVC image back into raw pixels — about 46 MB for a 12 MP photo — draws them onto a canvas, and then encodes those pixels with PNG’s deflate-based compressor. Deflate is a general-purpose algorithm: it finds repeated byte sequences, not visual similarity. A photograph, where neighbouring pixels differ slightly almost everywhere, gives it very little to work with. A screenshot with large blocks of one colour gives it a lot.
That single sentence explains the entire size table above. PNG is not "better quality" — it is a lossless container wrapped around a compressor that was designed for text and graphics, being asked to store photographic noise.
Two properties of the output are worth knowing before you convert. First, PNG has no quality setting: the slider in the tool is ignored, and the file is always an exact copy of the decoded pixels. Second, canvas output is always 8-bit sRGB. A 10-bit HEIC, or one shot in Display P3, is reduced on the way out — the pixel count survives, the colour depth does not.
Memory behaves differently here too. The converter decodes one file at a time and releases the canvas after each encode, so a batch of 100 does not add up to 100 photos in memory. The peak is roughly one decoded photo plus one output buffer, which is why a large batch is limited by time rather than by RAM.
If the PNG is not what you expected
Lossless output surprises people in both directions — usually because it is bigger and no better looking.
| Symptom | What causes it | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| The PNG is 20 MB and the upload form rejects it | Lossless output of a photograph really is that large — this is not a bug | Use the JPG converter instead: same pixels, roughly a tenth of the size |
| The transparent background came out white | Either the output was JPG, or the source HEIC never had an alpha channel | iPhone camera photos are opaque. Only edited graphics carry transparency into the file |
| The PNG looks identical to a JPG | It nearly is: at quality 92 the difference is below the visible threshold | Choose PNG only when you will edit the file again or need alpha |
| Colours look slightly less vivid than on the phone | Display P3 source converted to 8-bit sRGB by the canvas | Expected. No browser-side converter preserves wide gamut in PNG output |
| One file fails inside a large batch | That photo is much larger than the rest and exhausted the tab’s memory | Convert it on its own, or take the JPG for that one file |
Where PNG helps, and where it costs you
Lossless is a property, not a benefit. These are the destinations where it earns its size — and the ones where it will block the upload.
| Destination | Accepts PNG? | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Figma, Illustrator, Affinity | Yes — often preferred | PNG is the natural interchange format for design work |
| Docs and wikis with screenshots | Yes | The right choice: text stays crisp at any zoom |
| WordPress and most CMSs | Yes, but nothing converts it | A 20 MB PNG will slow the page. Convert to WebP or JPG for delivery |
| Email attachments | 25 MB is the usual cap | Two photos can exceed it — attach JPGs |
| Government and visa forms | Usually JPG or PDF only | Check the accepted list before converting |
| Print services | Sometimes | Graphics yes, photographs usually TIFF or JPG |
If a form rejects a PNG, the reason is usually size or pixel dimensions rather than the format itself. Check both before converting again.
Questions
Is PNG lossless?
Yes. PNG stores every decoded pixel exactly, so no additional quality is lost during conversion.
Why is my PNG so much bigger?
PNG compresses without discarding data, while HEIC uses lossy HEVC compression. A 3 MB HEIC can easily become a 15 MB PNG.
Does this keep transparency?
Yes — if the HEIC has an alpha channel, the PNG output keeps it.
Can I convert PNG back to HEIC?
Not here. Browsers cannot encode HEVC, so HEIC output is not available in any client-side tool.
Is HEIC to PNG lossless?
The PNG holds every pixel the browser decoded, so nothing further is lost in the PNG step. The HEIC was already compressed, so this is "no additional loss", not "recovered the original".
Does the PNG keep 10-bit colour or HDR?
No. Canvas encoding is 8-bit sRGB, so 10-bit HEIC and Display P3 sources are both reduced. Detail is preserved; colour depth is not.
Why do designers ask for PNG instead of JPG?
Because PNG survives repeated editing. Every JPG save re-compresses the image; PNG does not, which matters when a file will be opened and saved dozens of times.
Related converters
Same engine, different formats — all processed locally.