HEIC to JPG for Shopify: Convert iPhone Photos Fast

You shot the new collection on your iPhone, AirDropped 60 photos to your laptop, and found a folder full of .HEIC files. Your laptop's photo editor won't open them, your supplier's portal rejects them, and you're not sure Shopify will take them either.

Shopify does accept HEIC images, but converting them to JPG or WebP before upload is still the safer move: every other tool in your workflow reads JPG, and you'll need to resize and compress the photos anyway. To stop the problem at the source, set your iPhone to "Most Compatible" under Settings → Camera → Formats.

Does Shopify accept HEIC files?

Yes. Shopify's help center lists HEIC as an accepted image format for products and collections, alongside JPEG, PNG, WebP, TIFF, BMP, GIF, and SVG. The same limits apply as for any image: under 20 MB per file and up to 5000 × 5000 px.

Accepted isn't the same as trouble-free, though. Three things still go wrong:

• Some iPhone files get refused anyway. Merchants in Shopify's community forum report "unsupported file type" errors on HEIC files that are technically valid, often HDR photos from newer iPhones. Shopify checks what's inside the file as well as the extension.
• You can't get a JPG copy back out of Shopify. A Shopify staff member confirmed in the community forum that the trick of adding .jpg to a CDN image URL, which works for PNG, doesn't work for HEIC.
• Everything around Shopify may choke. Image editors on Windows, marketplace listing tools, and CSV templates you share with a VA often expect JPG or PNG.

Uploading HEIC works. Living with a folder that half your tools can't open is what costs you the afternoon.

Why does your iPhone save HEIC in the first place?

iPhones save photos as HEIC by default because HEIC files are about half the size of JPEGs at the same quality. That's good for your phone's storage and bad for everything downstream. HEIC is a newer format, and plenty of software still can't read it without an extra plugin.

We learned a related lesson the hard way. iPhones also save some photos as MPO, a "multi-picture" JPEG that holds more than one image in one file. It has a .jpg extension and looks like a normal JPEG, until your code tries to export it. It broke our exports until we started treating MPO as plain JPEG at upload. Phone photos lie about what they are more often than you'd think.

How do you stop your iPhone from saving HEIC?

Open Settings → Camera → Formats and choose Most Compatible. From then on, your iPhone saves new photos as JPG. Photos you've already taken stay HEIC, so this fixes next week's shoot, not the 60 files on your laptop right now.

The trade-off is storage: JPG files take roughly twice the space on your phone. If you shoot products often, that's a fair price for skipping the conversion step forever.

How do you convert a few HEIC files on Mac or Windows?

On a Mac, select the files in Finder, right-click, and choose Quick Actions → Convert Image, then pick JPEG. Preview's File → Export does the same one file at a time. On Windows, install Microsoft's free HEIF Image Extensions so the Photos app can open HEIC, then use "Save as" to write a JPG.

Both work fine for five photos. For 60 they get tedious, and you're still left with full-size 4032 × 3024 px JPEGs that need resizing and compressing before they belong on a product page. The full pre-upload checklist is in How to Batch Optimize Images Before Uploading to Shopify. To run a whole folder at once, see bulk image optimization.

How do you convert HEIC to JPG and make it Shopify-ready in one pass?

Drop the HEIC files into GlassyPic with the rest of your product photos. It converts each HEIC to a high-quality JPG the moment you upload, then resizes, compresses, and writes alt text in the same run, so you never handle an intermediate file. Pick JPG or WebP as the output and set your size (2048 × 2048 px for square product images).

Our October 2026 test batch had two HEICs in it. We sized both to 2048 × 2048 px WebP:

Look at the middle column. Converting HEIC to JPG makes the file bigger, because JPEG compresses less efficiently than HEIC. A converter that stops there hands you heavier files than you started with. Compressing to WebP after conversion brings them back down, which is why conversion and compression belong in the same step.

The "Keep original format" option is turned off for HEIC files in GlassyPic, because the HEIC is already a JPG by the time it's processed, so there's no original format left to keep. Pick JPG, WebP, PNG, or AVIF instead.

Drop your HEIC photos into GlassyPic to try it on your own batch, no account needed. A Shopify app with the same conversion built in is on its way to the Shopify App Store.

Should you upload JPG or WebP to Shopify after converting?

Upload WebP for product images. WebP files are smaller than JPEG at the same visual quality, and Shopify accepts them directly. Shopify picks the format each shopper receives either way, so the choice you're making is the weight of the source file. Use JPG if another tool in your workflow (a marketplace feed, an email builder) needs it. Either way, convert once and compress in the same pass rather than stacking two lossy saves.

The full comparison, including AVIF, is in WebP vs AVIF vs JPEG for Shopify.

What if the HEIC photos came from your supplier?

Supplier phone photos are often small as well as HEIC, and small photos look soft on a product page. When you ask GlassyPic for a size more than 1.2 times larger than the original, it upscales the photo first. Our 720 × 540 px HEIC was upscaled 4× before the final resize. The full supplier workflow, from checking photos to alt text, is in How to Process Supplier Images for Shopify.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Does converting HEIC to JPG lose quality?

Barely, if you convert at high quality. GlassyPic converts HEIC to JPG at 95% quality, which is hard to tell apart from the original on a product photo. The catch is file size: in our test, conversion made files 80–94% larger. Compress after converting, ideally in the same step, to get them back under 100 KB.

Q: Can I upload HEIC directly to Shopify?

Yes. Shopify lists HEIC as an accepted image format, with the usual 20 MB and 5000 × 5000 px limits. Some HEIC files, often HDR photos from newer iPhones, still fail with an "unsupported file type" error. Converting to JPG or WebP before upload avoids that and lets you resize at the same time.

Q: What's the difference between HEIC and HEIF?

HEIF is the image container format; HEIC is the version Apple uses, with HEVC compression inside. In practice the two names mean the same thing for your product photos: a file iPhones create by default that many tools outside Apple's ecosystem can't open without a plugin.

Q: How do I convert many HEIC files to JPG for free?

On a Mac, select them all in Finder and use Quick Actions → Convert Image. On Windows, install Microsoft's HEIF Image Extensions, then save each as JPG. To convert, resize, and compress in one pass, drop them into GlassyPic; a few files run free without an account.

References

• Shopify Help Center, "Product media types": HEIC listed among accepted formats; 20 MB limit; up to 5000 × 5000 px; 2048 × 2048 px recommended for square images.
• Shopify Community, "Converting Shopify CDN image from HEIC to JPG": staff confirmation that the CDN does not convert HEIC.
• Craftshift, "Shopify 'the image is an unsupported file type' error fix (2026)": HDR HEIC refusals and content-based format checks.
• GlassyPic dogfood run, October 15, 2026 (docs/blog/research/dogfood-runs.md).