How to Convert HEIC to JPG on Mac (2026 Guide)

You took 400 photos on vacation. You get home, try to upload them to a website, and nothing works. The culprit: HEIC files. Apple switched to this format with iOS 11 because it cuts file sizes in half without visible quality loss. The rest of the internet hasn’t entirely caught up.

Here are six ways to convert HEIC to JPG on your Mac, from the free tools already on your computer to apps built for the job. If you need a dedicated HEIC converter for Mac, Picmal is the fastest option for batch processing.

Quick answer: To convert HEIC to JPG on a Mac, select your files in Finder, right-click → Quick Actions → Convert Image, and choose JPEG — no download needed. For more than a few dozen photos, a dedicated HEIC to JPG converter like Picmal batch-converts hundreds of files at once while preserving EXIF metadata (location, camera, timestamps). The six methods below cover every situation, free and paid.

What is HEIC, and why does it cause headaches?

HEIC is genuinely better than JPG. A 3MB HEIC photo looks identical to a 6MB JPG. It can hold multiple images in one file, which is how Live Photos work. Apple had good reasons.

Good reasons don’t help when:

• A website rejects your upload with no explanation
• Your Windows-using coworker can’t open the file you sent
• Photoshop on your coworker’s machine stares at the file like it’s written in cuneiform
• Your email client quietly drops the attachment

Method 1: Picmal (fastest for batch conversion)

Picmal is a native Mac app built for image conversion. If you have dozens or thousands of HEIC files, this is where you start.

Steps:

1. Download Picmal from picmal.app
2. Drag and drop your HEIC files into the app
3. Select “JPG” as the output format
4. Click “Convert”

Why people reach for it:

• Handles thousands of images without slowing down
• Runs entirely on your Mac. Nothing uploaded, nothing phoned home
• Keeps metadata and folder structure intact
• Quality slider so you control the output size
• No file size ceiling

Best for:

Dumping your entire iPhone photo library into it after a trip. Photographers who shoot HEIC and deliver JPG. Anyone who’d rather not route their vacation photos through someone else’s server.

Method 2: Preview (already on your Mac)

Preview does more than most people realize. It can convert images.

Steps:

1. Right-click the HEIC file → “Open With” → “Preview”
2. File → Export
3. Pick “JPEG” from the Format dropdown
4. Adjust the quality slider if you care about file size
5. Click “Save”

For multiple files:

1. Select all HEIC files in Finder
2. Right-click → Open with Preview
3. Cmd+A to select all images in the sidebar
4. File → Export Selected Images
5. Choose JPEG and pick a destination folder

The catch:

Gets sluggish past a few dozen images. Flattens your folder structure into one pile. Quality controls are bare-bones.

Method 3: the Photos app

If your images are already in Photos, you don’t need to dig them out of a folder first.

Steps:

1. Open Photos
2. Select the images you want to convert
3. File → Export → Export [Number] Photos
4. Set Photo Kind to “JPEG”
5. Pick your quality and size
6. Click “Export”

Upside:

Works with your existing library. Albums and organization carry over.

Downside:

If the photos aren’t already in Photos, you first have to import them (which is its own adventure). And exporting large selections is slow enough to make you check Activity Monitor.

Method 4: Quick Actions (right-click menu)

On macOS Monterey or later, Apple buried a surprisingly useful conversion tool in the right-click menu.

Steps:

1. Select HEIC files in Finder
2. Right-click → “Quick Actions”
3. “Convert Image”
4. Pick JPEG
5. Choose a size
6. “Convert to JPEG”

Worth knowing:

It creates copies rather than replacing your originals. Perfect for converting a handful of files when you don’t want to open anything.

Method 5: a saved Automator Quick Action (one-click, reusable)

If you convert HEIC files all the time, set this up once and forget about it. Automator ships with macOS, so there’s nothing to download or buy.

Steps:

1. Open Automator (Applications, or Spotlight)
2. Choose New → Quick Action
3. Set “Workflow receives current” to image files in Finder
4. Search the actions list for Change Type of Images and drag it in
5. Set “To Type” to JPEG (click Don’t Add if it offers to copy first, or Add to keep originals)
6. Save it as something like “Convert to JPEG”

Now right-click any HEIC file in Finder → Quick Actions → Convert to JPEG, and it converts in place with a single click.

Best for:

People who do this every week. The built-in Quick Action (Method 4) is fine for one-offs, but here you decide what happens. Chain a few steps together — resize, drop into a folder, convert — and it all runs from one right-click.

Method 6: the command line (ImageMagick)

If you already have a terminal open, ImageMagick converts images without a GUI.

Installation:

brew install imagemagick

A single file:

magick convert input.heic output.jpg

Every HEIC in a folder:

for file in *.heic; do
  magick convert "$file" "${file%.heic}.jpg"
done

Why bother:

Scriptable. You can wire it into a cron job, a shell alias, or a Hazel rule. Free, open-source, infinitely configurable.

Why not:

If “shell alias” means nothing to you, this isn’t your method.

Side-by-side comparison

Tips for better results

Quality settings that actually matter

• Archiving photos you care about: 95-100%. No visible difference from the original
• Uploading to a website: 80-85%. The file shrinks noticeably; your eyes won’t notice
• Emailing someone who doesn’t zoom in: 70-75%. Gets the job done

Keep your originals

Put converted files in a separate folder. Don’t delete the HEIC originals. They’re smaller than the JPGs anyway, and you might need them later.

Watch your metadata

Not every method preserves EXIF data (location, camera settings, timestamps). Picmal and Photos keep it. Preview might strip some of it without warning.

Troubleshooting

”Cannot open HEIC file”

Your macOS is too old. Update to High Sierra (10.13) or later. If you’re already on a recent version, you may be missing HEIF/HEVC codecs.

The converted JPG looks worse than the original

Crank the quality slider up to 90-95%. If you left it at the default, the tool probably picked something aggressive. Picmal gives you finer control here than the built-in options.

Conversion is painfully slow

Close Chrome. Yes, really. It’s eating your RAM. For large batches, use a dedicated converter instead of Preview, or split the batch into smaller chunks.

Frequently asked questions

Q: Do I lose quality when converting HEIC to JPG? A: Technically, yes. HEIC and JPG compress differently, so any conversion introduces some loss. In practice, at 90% quality or above, you’d need to pixel-peep to spot it.

Q: Can I keep the metadata (location, camera info)? A: Picmal and Photos preserve it. Preview is unreliable. ImageMagick preserves it by default but can strip it if you ask.

Q: What’s the fastest way to convert thousands of files? A: Picmal or ImageMagick. The built-in tools start to groan past a few hundred images.

Q: Should I keep the original HEIC files? A: Yes. They’re smaller than the JPGs you’re creating, so they cost you almost nothing to keep around. And format support only gets better over time.

The short version

If you’re converting a few files, right-click → Quick Actions and you’re done in seconds. If your HEIC files are already in Photos, export from there. For anything bigger, Picmal or ImageMagick will save you real time.

Pick based on how many files you have and how often you’ll do this:

• One-off, small batch: Quick Actions or Preview
• Already in Photos: Export from Photos
• Hundreds or thousands of files: Picmal
• Want to script it: ImageMagick

Related guides

• Converting a whole library at once? See How to Batch Convert Images on Mac for handling hundreds or thousands of HEIC files in one pass.
• Need PNG instead of JPG? See How to Convert HEIC to PNG on Mac — useful when you need lossless quality or transparency.
• Looking for alternatives to ImageOptim? Our ImageOptim alternatives guide compares 7 Mac tools for image compression and conversion.
• Want to reduce file size further? Check out How to Reduce Image File Size on Mac for resizing, format conversion, and compression tips.