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Brondam's avatar
Brondam
Copper Contributor
Jun 02, 2026

Best HEIC Viewer - view heic files on Windows 11?

Hi all, A lot of photos from newer iPhones are saved in HEIC format instead of JPG or PNG. The image quality is good and the file size is smaller, but HEIC files are not always easy to view heic fil...
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Jadeookb's avatar
Jadeookb
Iron Contributor
Jun 02, 2026

One simple trick for viewing HEIC files on Windows 11 is to convert the current HEIC photos to JPG or PNG. These formats are supported by almost all Windows apps, so the images can be opened, edited, shared, or uploaded without extra trouble.

For existing HEIC photos, a desktop heic viewer and converter is usually the easiest choice, especially when there are many files. After conversion, the new JPG or PNG copies can be viewed directly in Photos, Paint, File Explorer preview, or any common image viewer on Windows 11.

To avoid the same issue later, change the camera format on the iPhone. Go to Settings > Camera > Formats, then choose Most Compatible. After that, the iPhone will save new photos as JPEG instead of HEIC.

This method does not fix old HEIC files automatically, so those still need to be converted once. But after the iPhone is set to JPEG, future photos should be much easier to open on a Windows 11 computer.