How to Convert HEIC to PNG on Windows

PNG keeps every pixel of the photo exactly as it was decoded, opens in practically every editor and design tool, and is accepted where HEIC is not. A HEIC photo has already lost some detail to compression, so converting it to PNG adds no further loss, but it cannot bring back what was dropped.

The price is size: a photo saved as PNG is several times larger than the HEIC or JPG it came from. For everyday sharing, email and uploads, converting HEIC to JPG gives much smaller files.

• Usually worth it: photos you will edit further, photos for a design tool, a game or a presentation that insists on PNG, and forms that accept only PNG.
• Usually not: photos to email, post or upload to a site with a size limit. JPG is far smaller.
• No transparency to gain: a camera photo has no transparent areas, so PNG only adds size.

HEIC photos use HEVC, a video codec, so Windows can only show them once two Microsoft Store extensions are installed: HEIF Image Extensions, which is free, and HEVC Video Extensions, which is paid in most regions. With the HEIF extension alone, .heic files still won't open.

With both installed, Photos and Paint open HEIC photos like any other picture. File Acture reads them through the same Windows codecs, so install the extensions first if Windows can't show your photos.

With the two extensions installed, Paint can open a HEIC photo and save it as a PNG, one photo at a time.

Open the photo in Paint, choose File > Save as > PNG picture and save. The HEIC original stays as it was, and there is no quality setting, because PNG is lossless. Converting twenty photos this way means twenty rounds of opening and saving.

File Acture's Convert Images turns a batch of HEIC photos into PNG in one run, on your PC.

Choose PNG under Format. Quality matters only for lossy formats such as JPEG and WebP, so it does nothing for PNG. Keep metadata is off by default, so camera details and location are not written into the PNG. Each photo's colors are converted to sRGB as it is read, so they stay consistent in other programs, photos are turned upright using their orientation tag, and each PNG keeps the original file name.

The same tool also converts to JPEG and WebP, and it reads TIFF, GIF and BMP files as well as HEIC and AVIF. The new files go to the folder you pick in Folder, the originals stay as they were, and nothing is uploaded.

HEIC compresses photos very efficiently by dropping detail the eye barely notices. PNG keeps every pixel, and photographs, with their endless small color changes, compress poorly that way, so a PNG made from a HEIC photo is typically several times larger than the HEIC, and larger than a JPG of the same photo.

So convert to PNG when something needs PNG, not to shrink or protect a photo. If the PNG then has to fit a size limit, Compress Images can reach a target such as 500 KB, but because PNG is lossless, a small target means fewer pixels.

Check pixel size, metadata and what you really need PNG for before you convert a whole folder.

• Pixel size: converting does not change it. To make photos smaller for email or the web, resize them in bulk.
• Metadata: by default no camera details or location go into the PNG.
• Renaming is not converting: changing photo.heic to photo.png only changes the name. The contents are still HEIC, and a site that checks them can still reject the file.
• Already have PNGs you need as JPG? Convert PNG to JPG in one run.
• Batches: the free version converts up to 5 photos per run, with 3 runs on each PC; see pricing for Pro.