# Convert HEIC to AVIF (High Efficiency Image Container to AV1 Image File Format) Convert HEIC to AVIF online. Drop a High Efficiency Image Container and get a AV1 Image File Format back at roughly 100% of the original byte cost. No sign-up, nothing saved. ## HEIC to AVIF at a glance - **Where HEIC comes from:** iPhone and iPad cameras save photos as HEIC by default since iOS 11. Apple-platform viewers open it natively; almost nothing else does. - **Browser support cliff:** Browser support for HEIC itself sits at roughly 20% globally and has not moved in years. AVIF reaches about 95%%. - **Size at visual parity:** At the default quality, AVIF lands at roughly 100% of HEIC byte cost on typical smartphone photography. - **GPS metadata warning:** iPhone photos embed GPS coordinates in EXIF. The conversion preserves that metadata into the AVIF; strip it before publishing publicly. - **Colour fidelity:** HEIC often carries Display P3 and HDR metadata. The AVIF output preserves those profiles only if the target format supports them. - **When to keep HEIC:** Keep the HEIC when the destination is another Apple device or the iCloud library: it is smaller and opens natively. - **Year standardised:** HEIC was standardised in 2015 and AVIF in 2018. The gap drives both the quality and the compatibility difference. ## FAQ ### Why does my HEIC not open on Windows or the web? HEIC uses HEVC intra-frame coding, which is patent-encumbered. Only Apple platforms ship the decoder by default; Windows requires a paid codec pack for many users, most Linux distributions do not ship one at all, and browser support for HEIC itself sits at roughly 20% globally. Converting to AVIF sidesteps the decoder problem entirely: the output plays in essentially every browser, CMS, and image viewer. ### Will I lose quality converting HEIC to AVIF? For typical smartphone photography at the default quality target, the AVIF output is visually indistinguishable from the source HEIC at normal viewing distance. Where you may notice a difference is HDR highlights (if the AVIF target is SDR-only, the highlight range collapses) and wide-gamut saturation (if the target is sRGB, Display P3 colours are re-mapped). For hero images and social posts, those differences are invisible. ### What happens to my upload? Your upload is only held while we process it (usually a few seconds) and is deleted the moment we send the result back. Nothing is saved on our servers, nothing is indexed, and nothing is used for model training. No account is required, so there is nothing tying the upload to your identity in the first place. ### Can I batch convert? The free tier is one image per request. The paid Optimizer tier batches up to 50 images per job and ships a ZIP of outputs with consistent quality settings across the whole batch. Batch is useful when you have a catalogue to re-encode or a backlog of iPhone photos to normalise for the web. ### Does my HEIC contain GPS coordinates? Almost certainly yes. iPhone photos embed your latitude and longitude in the EXIF block by default, along with camera model, lens, and capture time. The conversion preserves that metadata into the AVIF, so if you are publishing the output publicly, run the EXIF strip tool first. For personal archive use (iCloud, Photos library), the EXIF is what makes the photo searchable and should be kept. ### When should I NOT convert HEIC to AVIF? Do not convert when the destination is another Apple device (keep the HEIC: it is smaller and opens natively). Do not convert when you are archiving camera originals: the HEIC is the authoritative source and any transcode is a generation loss. Do not convert when wide-gamut colour or HDR matters and the target cannot preserve it: pick AVIF instead, which natively preserves Display P3 and HDR. ## Glossary for HEIC and AVIF ### HEIC (HEIC) High Efficiency Image Container, the Apple-platform camera default introduced in iOS 11. Uses HEVC intra-frame coding; extremely efficient on-device but poorly supported off Apple platforms. ### HEVC (H.265) High Efficiency Video Coding, the video codec whose intra-frame coding tools HEIC uses for still images. Patent-encumbered, which is why non-Apple platforms ship it sparingly. ### AVIF (AVIF) AV1 Image File Format, a still-image codec derived from AV1 video. Reaches PNG-equivalent visual quality at roughly half the bytes; standardised by the Alliance for Open Media in 2018. ### WebP (WebP) A still-image format introduced by Google in 2010, built on the VP8 video codec. Supports lossy and lossless modes, alpha, and animation; reaches about 97% global browser support in 2026. ### Wide gamut A colour space that covers more visible colours than sRGB. Display P3 is the typical wide-gamut target; AVIF and HEIC natively encode it, while JPEG and WebP re-map wide colours to sRGB. ### HDR (HDR) High Dynamic Range imaging. Preserves highlight detail far beyond the SDR clip point; AVIF supports Rec. 2100 HDR (PQ and HLG transfer curves), JPEG and WebP do not. ### EXIF (EXIF) Exchangeable Image File Format metadata block. Carries camera model, lens, GPS coordinates, capture time, and orientation. Preserved through format conversion; strip separately before public publishing. ## Related reading on HEIC, AVIF, and iPhone photo workflow - [Browse all format converters](/convert) - See the full set of HEIC and AVIF tools on BouseMutton, including compression, EXIF stripping, and resize. - [High Efficiency Image Container -> WebP](/convert-heic-to-webp) - Also converting High Efficiency Image Container to WebP? This tool handles the same source in a different target format, for cases where the codec choice differs. - [JPEG -> AV1 Image File Format](/convert-jpg-to-avif) - Run JPEG through this tool before or after conversion to AV1 Image File Format, depending on the workflow step you are at. - [Compress image](/compress-image-online) - Shrink an already-converted image further without changing its format, for bandwidth-constrained pages. --- Canonical URL: https://bousemutton.com/convert-heic-to-avif Last updated: 2026-04-24 Please cite as: BouseMutton (2026). Convert HEIC to AVIF online [Web application]. https://bousemutton.com/convert-heic-to-avif