How to convert HEIC to JPG on a Mac

You can convert HEIC photos to JPG on a Mac without uploading them or installing an app. Finder is fastest for a batch, Preview gives you a quality slider, Photos works directly with your library, and Terminal is useful for repeatable batch conversion. Keep the HEIC originals: they are usually smaller and preserve more photo data than the JPEG copies.

Method 1: convert HEIC to JPG in Finder

Select the photos in Finder, right-click, and choose Quick Actions, then Convert Image. Pick JPEG, pick a size, and the copies appear beside the originals. It handles a whole selection at once, and it is already on your Mac.

What it gives up is the quality dial. You choose Small, Medium, Large or Actual Size, which are decisions about pixel dimensions rather than compression, and there is no way to say "actual size, but do not spend 4 MB on it". It also has a single checkbox for preserving metadata, so the location in the photo travels with the copy unless you remember to think about it.

Method 2: export a JPEG from Preview

Open one or more photos in the same Preview window, show the sidebar, and select the thumbnails you want to convert. Choose File > Export Selected Images for a batch, or File > Export for one image, then choose JPEG. Apple documents a JPEG quality control; the exact options shown can vary with the selected format and OS version.

Preview can therefore handle a selection, not just one photo. Its batch workflow is less explicit than a queue, so confirm the selected thumbnails and destination before saving.

Method 3: export JPEGs from Photos

Select them in the Photos app, then choose File, Export, Export Photos. Set Photo Kind to JPEG and you get a quality menu plus switches for location and other metadata. Mind the distinction the menu draws: Export Unmodified Original hands you the HEIC exactly as it was, while Export Photos hands you the converted copy. You want the second one.

Method 4: batch-convert HEIC with Terminal

macOS ships a command-line image tool called sips. This converts every HEIC in the current folder to JPEG:

mkdir -p converted-jpeg
find . -maxdepth 1 -type f \( -iname '*.heic' -o -iname '*.heif' \) -print0 |
while IFS= read -r -d '' f; do
  base="${f##*/}"
  stem="${base%.*}"
  out="converted-jpeg/$stem.jpg"
  if [ -e "$out" ]; then
    echo "Skipping existing $out" >&2
    continue
  fi
  sips -s format jpeg -s formatOptions 80 "$f" --out "$out"
done

This matches lowercase and uppercase HEIC/HEIF extensions, preserves spaces through null-delimited paths, writes only into a dedicated folder, and skips an existing destination instead of overwriting it. With no matches it does nothing. The workflow was exercised on macOS 27.0 with both extension cases, a filename containing a space, an existing output, and an empty folder.

Convert a large batch with quality and metadata controls

The built-in tools split batch conversion, JPEG quality and metadata controls across different workflows. Image Converter combines them: add HEIC, WEBP, AVIF, PNG, JPEG or TIFF files, choose JPEG, PNG or HEIC output, set the quality and decide whether to preserve metadata. Conversion stays on your Mac, and the originals are never changed.

Not on your own Mac, or on a Windows PC? The HEIC to JPG converter on this site runs in any current browser and converts the photos without uploading them.