iPhone photos won't open on Windows? Convert HEIC to JPG in the browser

You AirDropped a photo, plugged in a cable, or saved an attachment from your phone. On a Windows PC the thumbnail is blank, Photos says it cannot open the file, or a web form rejects the upload. The name ends in .heic or .HEIC. That is an iPhone still, not a broken download. Stayshot turns it into a JPG on this computer so Windows and ordinary websites can use it.

Why Windows cannot open the iPhone photo

Since iOS 11, Camera saves High Efficiency Image Container by default. HEIC wraps a HEVC still (and sometimes Live Photo extras) in a HEIF box. macOS and iOS decode that natively. Windows 10 and 11 do not, unless you install optional HEIF and HEVC extensions from the Microsoft Store. Many office PCs block Store apps. Even with codecs, a tax portal, CMS, or printer still wants JPEG.

Explorer may show a generic icon. Photos may error. Outlook and Chrome file pickers often refuse HEIC. None of that means the picture is corrupt. It means the PC was given a phone format it was never asked to support. Converting the still to JPG is the boring, reliable fix: one file, widely accepted, easy to attach.

Convert in the browser, not on a website’s server

Plenty of “HEIC to JPG” sites ask you to upload the photo. That is a copy of your camera roll on someone else’s disk, at least for a while. Stayshot does not do that. The converter is a static page. A Web Worker fetches a WASM build of libheif from this site, decodes the HEIC in the tab, and the Canvas API writes JPEG. Your bytes are not posted to a conversion API. There is no account. Close the tab and the working copy is gone.

That is the point of this page: get a Windows-friendly JPG without installing codecs and without handing the original to a third-party processor. The same local converter is HEIC to JPG on Mac, iPhone or Android. Quality defaults to 90. EXIF is stripped unless you opt in, which is usually what you want before a form or email. Live Photos contribute the still, not the video. Some 10-bit HDR or Portrait depth files fail in WASM; the UI says so instead of offering a green placeholder.

Short steps on a Windows PC

1. Copy the .heic files onto the PC (USB, OneDrive, email to yourself, AirDrop to another device then a stick — whatever you already use).
2. Drop your .heic files into the converter above, click Convert, and download the .jpg (or a ZIP if you added several).
3. Open the JPG in Photos, attach it in Outlook, or upload it to the form.

The free version includes 5 conversions in this browser. Files past the ones you have left are refused at drop, not halfway through Convert. Need PNG instead of JPEG, or a .jpeg extension for a picky form? Use the related converters after you have a working still.

When the $9 lifetime unlock is worth it

If you dump a vacation roll every month, or you assemble iPhone shots into a PDF, the free cap gets in the way. Lifetime is $9 in this browser: unlimited conversions and HEIC to PDF. ZIP download is free. Pay once with Stripe from Pricing. 5 free conversions in this browser is still enough for a typical Windows “this attachment won’t open” afternoon.

Stayshot will not pretend a server converted your photos. If a HEIC fails, export JPEG from the iPhone Photos app and try that file, or pick another frame. The goal is a picture Windows can open — not a cloud gallery.