What Are HEIC Files?

[@chickadddee]

As a former teacher, I'd like to commend you on your explanations. They are clear, free of anything that might be misunderstood (or else you explain those parts as you go), your pacing is slower as you reduce procedures into small increments, and you demonstrate your explanations with visuals. You're a natural. All so very helpful, thank you! :)

[@marcomark8]

I agree with the above statement. You are a brilliant man and an excellent teacher.

[@nomad8197]

We recently upgraded our MacBook and I've taken this opportunity to collect all of our photos and transfer to the new machine. I knew nothing about the Photos app. Having watched many of your videos on this topic, I'm gaining a very good understanding. You present the information in your videos in a clear, concise manner that makes learning a lot of fun. Thank you for helping us all to get more out of our Macs! I'll be checking out much more of your content as I learn the new MacBook.

[@isocarboxazid]

I had been wondering what the HEIC these files were about!

[@fahad90909]

Another nice one! I have been using heic for a while without knowing the background. I am now better informed. Thanks

[@javierpoot8502]

Good to know details about this HEIC format, nice video. Thanks Gary.

[@gettinsquare2987]

Thanks Garry. After watching this video and doing some experiments with the 14 Pro Max and finding that not all the iPhone lenses are created equal I have changed my shooting format to HEIF Max. Cheers

[@UrbanGarden-rf5op]

This video is really good for your image(es) 😉 Thanks for all the interesting and well produced lessons. You are a real problem solver.

[@arsenykozlov2961]

Thanks for the video! I like your flow without anxiety music on a background. There are so many noises in 2024, the guide needed to be quite, thank you for your kind and pleasure.

[@Drunkmonkey8294]

Thanks Gary. I wondered what HEIC formatting was.

[@joepublisher166]

Wow! Great video explaining these image types! Thank you!

[@randomgeocacher]

Fun fact: Bayer image sensors are not fully resolved like an ancient 3chip camera or a computer generated graphics file. A 12MP bayer sensor has 6MP green pixels, 3MP blue pixels, 3MP red pixels. So viewing a 12MP file as a true 12MP actually extrapolate, creates data that never existed to begin with. The raw file likely is three black and white images 6+3+3MP (12MP) images, as that’s what is captured by the sensor. Not much point pixel peeping a camera still image as the image literally is upscaled, more pixels/colors than the sensor that took the image :-)

[@cogmovies]

Brilliantly explained Gary!

[@alohakeithb]

Fascinating stuff. Thanks Gary. You are a fount of knowledge!

[@notlimey]

Thanks! I've been wondering about this for some time.

[@ronb3914]

You read my mind on the converting question! 🤣 Thanks as always, Gary! 👌

[@suemacdonald9623]

Very interesting - I wondered what HEIC ext was

[@moow950]

If you want to edit your photos, store your photos as lossless (like TIFF) or in raw format, so you don't get compression on compression. For editing videos, the preferred source format would be ProRes, while the end product can be in H264 or H265 (HEVC)

[@macmost]

Depends on the original photo. If you have a jpeg from your camera, then converting to TIFF won't get you anything but a much larger file (you can't convert to RAW). HEIC also has a lossless level. But note that the difference between high HEIC (or jpeg) and lossless TIFF or HEIC is so small that it will come down to the quality of the photo captured in the first place. Probably not worth it for the vast majority of people. ProRes is huge and should only be used when making professional videos and films, when money is no object (you'll need some big fast drives to store it all).

[@wesmatchett615]

PNG is also lossless

[@GirdHerd]

A very helpful video. Thanks for sharing the information.

[@iml1945]

Excellent explanation, thanks Gary.

[@MickHealey]

Thanks Gary, nice and clear explanation.

[@marctronixx]

6:34 -- thank you! i use both windows and mac and ifruit (iphone) and android and toggling this BACK to "more compatibility" will make me sleep better at night. thank you!! i have TB and TB of storage so i dont care about that -- for me i need compatibility! also thumbs up and this is the first time ive seen your channel. thanks youtube algorithm!

[@clydedigital]

Brilliant as usual.

[@AlanDeRossett]

Thanks this had rendered my iPhone 14 photos incompatible with several other systems, I only care what it looks like on a website. so it's very annoying when we cannot use or see photos we need to upload. Had switched from using iCloud last year because of this. Google photos. Was used between coworkers. Until my iPhone started saving as HEIC

[@alanadams9793]

Nice presentation, thanks

[@MrPir84free]

Making the files smaller actually encourages taking more pictures, which will drive up demand for larger storage devices, like in smart phones. But most phone vendors want to push something that costs PER month in a subscription, like cloud storage. As demand grows, so will the prices for onboard storage and for cloud storage as well. Any large vendor, like Apple, is very well aware of how to manipulate their user base; this is just one example.

[@bobm2410]

Excellent explanation.

[@neostephens8980]

My iPhone 15 Pro Max files still come over as HIEC files, even though the setting is set to "Most Compatible".

[@billburnett1531]

This is very informative. What I've had a problem with is when I NEED to send a photo to say a DMV or IRS website they won't accept anything but a jpeg, so I have to convert it which means I have duplicates of those photos in HEIC and JPEG.

[@macmost]

Just export as a jpeg, upload, and delete the jpeg.

[@mamalovesthebeach437]

Thanks so much Gary!

[@Rhythmattica]

Great info... Thanks. (Containers FTW) Beers & Cheers from OZ

[@QLTD]

Thank you

[@stratman103]

Great video as always Gary!!

[@AnilAtluriWord]

Good informative clip Gary. Thanks.

[@ElvenSpellmaker]

You can open HEIC on Windows if you have the code from the Windows store on 10 and 11. For HVEC there's a fee for the codec but there used to be a way around it, not sure if it still works.

[@itsROMPERS...]

My vintage 2021 Samsung Galaxy A71 handles HEIC/HEVC just fine, so it's not just an apple iPhone thing.

[@macmost]

It depends more on the OS version, not the hardware version. Newer versions of Android will handle HEIC fine.

[@itsROMPERS...]

@@macmost right, but since you only mentioned Apple products, i thought I'd comment so people would know that Android also handled those files, since you didn't.

[@misteraon]

I don’t think Apple looses out by implementing HEIC…or even HEVC. I think it’s more of balancing act as camera sensors get larger so do file sizes under the older formats. By shifting to more efficient file formats it offsets the increasing camera resolutions. So in the end maybe it’s closer to a wash. Plus as time goes on people tend to take more and more photos and videos. So storage requirements will still likely to increase, maybe just at a lower rate.

[@derek_williams]

I've been wondering how to manage when I take large numbers of photos from my iPhone to my work Windows pc. I'll change the default setting in my work phone now! Thanks a lot! ☺

[@emont]

In regards of images formats, wanted to ask if is there some format of background picture with real time metadata vector, I mean I would like to have a background image in my WebEx or Zoom videoconferencing but with image showing current time changing in my background scenario, for example a Wall watch, the time showed might be the local time of each assistant. I guess it will be an innovative format!

[@macmost]

That would need to be a feature that WebEx or Zoom would build into their apps.

[@defel1]

Informative.

[@dynamitestyle8678]

There are packages on Linux one can install to enable compatibility with HEIC files.

[@photelegy]

In Windows there was a free HEIC-format-programm to Install from the Microsoft Store for Free. But sadly now it costs. So I can't convince everyone in my family and all my friends to install it so they can see the heic-images. PS: I'm using a Samsung and they also have heic as their standard 👍🏻

[@larrykerman7231]

So when you attach one or more photos to an email on iPhone and are asked what size you want to send it, which should you choose?

[@Stilicho19801]

I myself select largest size and lowest quality jpeg, but this was a recommendation from a forgotten source.

[@michaeldavidson8971]

My 2019 iPad air stores photos I take in HEIF format, how does that differ from HEIC?

[@alexandermayakovsky6550]

Excellent

[@markproulx1472]

How do you get the camera to record in raw mode?

[@macmost]

Depends on the camera.

[@SteffenLiss]

The billion dollars question is: will we see native support of the new formats on other operating systems and browsers? How long is the internet looking for a handy new format to reduce loading time and space consumption.

[@youtubeuser856]

Why are people still using JPEG as opposed to JPG? What is the difference if any? Thx

[@macmost]

They are the same. Just two different file extensions for the same type of file.

[@calorion]

9:12 Now wait a minute. You say it would be compressing a compressed photo, but there’s a “lossless” option with HEIC. Do you still save disk space with that option?

[@macmost]

Definitely not. Try it and see. You are asking it to take the jpeg, extract each pixel from the compression algorithm, and then save each pixel exactly in a new file. It will be much bigger.

[@theclearsounds3911]

Excellent video. However, you skipped right over something staring us all in the face; LOSSLESS! 4:01 I'd love to know how well that setting compresses the image, and how that compares to other lossless formats.

[@macmost]

That's not something most people would want. It would create very large files and you'd never want to convert a lossy file like jpeg to lossless as all you'd be doing is creating a perfect preservation of the lossy compressed jpeg as a much larger file. You wouldn't gain anything at all, and lose quite a bit in terms of a larger file size.

[@theclearsounds3911]

@@macmost You're totally misunderstanding my comment. I'm talking about using the lossless setting on HEIC for storing your newly taken uncompressed pictures, not for converting your old already compressed ones. How well does the lossless setting compress, and how does that compare to other lossless standards, like TIFF?

[@macmost]

@@theclearsounds3911 Unless you are using RAW, then when you take a picture it is compressed right at that moment. Either HEIC or JPEG. If you take RAW and "develop" to an uncompressed HEIC, you'll get a smaller file with the light and color "develop" selections baked in (since it is not RAW anymore). I assume it would be much smaller than RAW. It should also be smaller than TIFF (which is an old format that is lossless AND uncompressed). Maybe it is similar to PNG, but not sure which would be smaller, though both would be lossless so identical in terms of quality I should think.

[@gd.ritter]

If converting jpg to heic is going to reduce file quality, then doesnt converting shares from heic to jpg cause similar degrading quality?

[@macmost]

Yes. But think about WHY you are converting. If the goal is to send someone a COPY of your photo, and they can't open an HEIC, then converting to jpeg makes sense. But what doesn't make sense is to convert from jpeg to HEIC in order to STORE your original photo.

[@rhettshipley4593]

You are amazing but you already know that

[@martinhanson3528]

Hi Gary, I’ve always found file formats a bit confusing. I noticed that on my iPhone 14 the file is shown as HEIF which I suppose is the same?

[@macmost]

Yes.

[@misha4422]

So, a loss on quality going from Jpeg to HEIC. But no quality loss going from compressed HEIC to Jpeg? How? HEIC compression isn’t lossy?

[@macmost]

No, loss both ways. Any compressed-to-compressed conversion, or non-compressed-to-compressed, you will lose some quality. My point is that if the pictures are already compressed with one format, then leave it in that format. Just use HEIC for new photos. Leave the old photos as-is.

[@Kartikrana786]

Hello garry sir can you please a video on how to make animated memes on mac and apps for i phone waiting for answer 😊 have a nice day

[@mindexplorer6929]

Also the discussion of movies is very unclear. You compare 2 different movies. The 1st one is a .mov containing H.264 with a size is 23.6 MB. The 2nd is a mov containing HEVC with a size of 34.5 MB which after it's automatic conversion to H.264 results in 38.7 MB. So what is the lesson to learn in this example?

[@macmost]

Not sure what you mean. HEVC will usually result in smaller files than h264, but it is less compatible with other devices. However, the point of the tutorial is you can convert them to h264 if you need to send them to someone else that can't view HEVC.

[@db4035]

Can you open HEIC files in Photoshop and save them as jpegs?

[@macmost]

Yes, but watch the video where I explain why you shouldn't concert HEIC to jpeg. Unless you are just converting them to send a copy to someone unable to view HEIC, of course.

[@db4035]

@@macmost Thanks so much for your reply. Your videos are excellent. Keep up the great work.

[@Stilicho19801]

You mention that Windows cannot open HEIC images. Can HEIC images be viewed on internet web pages by Windows users or must they be converted by Mac developers to a viewable format?

[@macmost]

HEIC is definitely not well-supported in browsers outsid e of Safari so far. You definitely don't want to use them for web design.

[@jimmyzbike]

these files reek havoc as my employees attach them to work orders, from their devices, yet I have to view and manage from a windows 7 server. god bless the march of technology and companies that refuse to move fw.

[@Greg-fg1rd]

Just had a little earthquake here....nice return to "normal". Thanks.

[@1dgram]

We just need a non-lossy compression that efficiently works on these older file formats.

[@macmost]

Not sure what you mean.

[@1dgram]

​@@macmost I mean have a compression algorithm that takes say a jpg and creates something more compact that does not introduce any more compression artifacts than that jpg -- for those instances where the old jpg is the best that exists. With this hypothetical format, you should be able to take the file and reproduce an exact copy of the jpg, byte for byte. Regular compression algorithms may have a hard time compressing jpg's and the resultant archive would not be as easily viewable as an image file would be. Something similar could be done for old video formats.

[@macmost]

@@1dgram That's just not practical. "takes say a jpg and creates something more compact that does not introduce any more compression artifacts than that jpg" -- you will not get a better file size than then jpg in that case. Maybe randomly a few images could potentially be a few bytes smaller. But others would be larger. It wouldn't make sense to do that.

[@1dgram]

@@macmost depends on whether some of the advances we've made in image and esp video compression could be applied on top of the older techniques

[@macmost]

@@1dgram But you want exact lossless compression, and advances would likely be in lossy compression. But it is all academic. You have your options as they are now and changes may or may not come in future years.

[@SteveStowell]

You can open an HEIC file on windows

[@macmost]

You can if you have something additional installed. Sounds like you do. Not true for everyone though.

[@yinoveryang4246]

8:45. Gary is correct here at the end of the video. It's pretty important point, and everyone should listen. Sequentially re-compressing files into different formats is very damaging. (With the exception of "lossless" TIFF format) HEIC is overhyped, I'll explain why… I'm an imaging professional. for a living: After analysis on my own part, I don't approve of HEIC format. I think Apple, shall we say, they have been misinformed to introduce HEIC as a standard over JPEG. It wrecks extreme highlight and shadow detail, leading to posterization and color casts. I've seen this on multiple examples. The file size saving is too minimal for this loss to be justified. Just because a format is old, (like JPEG or GIF), doesn't mean it has any inherent fault and needs to be replaced. Also saving on HD space these days is also a highly dubious motive. Driven by suppliers attempting to save money, not to improve the quality of users saved images.

[@macforme]

Thanks so much for sharing your expertise 👍😎 I have not jumped on the HEIC bandwagon ( I guess I am old fashioned.)

[@gozzilla78]

Great explanation! But saying that Apple is “loosing money” for our good and the good of all human kind…………… 😂

[@macmost]

I never say "for our good and the good of all human kind." All I say is "So Apple is actually loosing money by implementing this."

[@gozzilla78]

@@macmost Sure, my comment was a little too snarky, apologies for that. The quote mark was just around "losing money" anyway. Just "losing money" in the same sentence with "Apple" sounded a little... weird... :)

[@gerald8573]

05:00 No that’s wrong information. You can open and work with HEIC files in Windows. I know you love your Mac but please don’t spread misinformation.

[@macmost]

According to many many posts online you need the "HEIF Image Extension" to do that. So sure you can, but not out of the box, nor do you necessarily want to ask others to install something to see your photo.

[@ivicaganic4607]

Isn't the quality lost during the conversion from HEIC to JPEG format? Yeah, wright it is...

[@macmost]

Yes. But you are doing HEIC to JPEG into order to send a copy to someone so they can view it. That's different than doing a JPEG to HEIC conversion in order to keep the HEIC as your only version of the file to have forever.

[@ivicaganic4607]

@@macmost Yes, but can someone send me HEIC file easily and let me take care of it if I don't use any Apple product?

[@macmost]

@@ivicaganic4607 Depends on what you do use. There are also ways apps that can open HEIC/HEIF and also extensions for things like Windows that will let you handle it.

[@HarvardHeinous]

I'd toss in some critical thinking here, but it'd be lost in the sea of "Gary did great" comments.

[@macmost]

"critical thinking" about HEIC files? It is just an image file format...

[@mindexplorer6929]

Your size calculation is very unclear! 4032x3024 Pixels = 12.2 Million Pixels What does the "x3 (R,G,B)" mean???? Do you have a single pixel per color? You have to have a number per color to represent a color level. If you speak about 36 "megs", do you mean MegaBytes? In your example you implicitly chose 8 bits per color and that's the reason you end up with 36 MegaBytes. There would be other possibilities of color values like 12 bits/color or 16 bits/color, which would result in other sizes

[@macmost]

Each pixel is made up of three numbers: a red, green and blue number. So 12 million pixels means 36 million numbers. Yes, there are other bit-sizes for colors. I'm just stating a normal example here to give people a better understanding.

[@MarttiSuomivuori]

Try to share a HEIC file from your iPhne and you'll swear a lot. You can change it back in phone settings. Not compatible. Babble, babble, babble.

[@macmost]

Share how? It should convert to jpeg automatically.

[@petercrossley1069]

Stop saying “advancements”. The correct word is “advances”.

[@macmost]

Reference? Curious, I looked it up, and it seems "advancements" is right, or at least acceptable here in the one place I use it in this video: "There have been advancements in the field." Also, note I'm talking here, not reading a script. So if you are expecting perfect grammar from your computer video tutorials, then this is the wrong channel for you.

[@worldmikel]

One more reason to not buy and foster the use of Apple proprietary products.

[@macmost]

How so? HEIC is not proprietary. It is a standard. Apple was just the first to adopt it.

[@worldmikel]

@@macmost Quick Google on "heic proprietary" yields: "HEIC is Apple's proprietary file format, so it is not natively supported in Windows' default Photos app. Therefore, you'll need to download an optional plugin to open these files."

[@PaulM_aka_4c21]

Can you explain your reasoning, did you watch a different video ?

[@bootsybero]

I have a better understanding of HEIC now! Thank you, Gary!!🥰

[@ThatXrayGuy]

You did a great job explaining that, Gary! Thank you!

[@johnvender]

Another image compression format that I've been seeing more of is Google's WebP which is claimed to also maintain good quality and result in files smaller than jpeg. It would be interesting to see a comparison of HEIC and WebP.

[@garudasomanna]

Yes, I too have come across this WebP and am stumped to know how to view it on my iMac. Hope Gary will touch this subject too. Listening, Gary?😃

[@greebo7857]

Thanks Gary. The only times I have an issue are sending pics to my Android friends, and that's also an MMS issue, and posting pics to a forum I'm a member of that uses the old VBulletin software and doesn't recognise any HE formats. I usually convert these in Finder, I didn't know they could be converted automatically in Mail, etc.

[@turnermorgan1176]

The Windows Store has available HEIC converter for the photo viewer in Windows. Likewise, Samsung's S24 series will save photos to HEIC format.

[@robertwelsome3111]

But the cost money

[@LeahyPhoto]

More recently taken photos will be using a newer device with significantly more pixels and HEIC will benefit them more than older, smaller photos.

[@rickyiglesias5384]

I like that they take up less space than JPEG. but I can't stand the fact that eBay won't let me upload them when I list items for sale. so I have to convert every single HEIC that I Airdrop to my MacMini. uggh.

[@GarrEFeLix]

I don’t have this issue w eBay. But it’s this kind of quirk I prefer JPG.

[@rickyiglesias5384]

@@GarrEFeLix I should have clarified. ONE of my ebay accounts allows HEIC uploads. but the other 4 do NOT. I'm assuming because the one seller account is over 15 years old and the others are newer? Doesn't make sense but that's all I can figure.

[@michaeldavidson8971]

Never mind, I looked it up. When you take a photo on your iPhone or iPad, the image - or images, in the case of dual cameras and live photos - saves as an HEIC file. HEIC stands for High Efficiency Image Container. The format is an updated variant of the High Efficiency Image Format (HEIF), traditionally used by Apple across its mobile devices.

[@GarrEFeLix]

Ugh I don’t like using HEIC since it’s not compatible with some things.

[@alanfindlayviewfromtherock6200]

Excellent explanation Gary. I have a better understanding of the situation.

[@woufff_]

Thanks Gary, great explanation as always.

[@Westlake]

Thanks Gary! Hope all is well!

[@bbartky]

Bravo! 👏 The best overview of the HEIC format I have ever seen. Prior to today I wasn’t aware of your channel, but the KZbin algorithm actually worked and recommended this video. And you have a new subscriber. 😃

[@K_R_W]

One huge problem is the need to convert as many file users will not accept heic files. My health insurance co. is one such provider that only accepts jpeg files

[@macmost]

Easy to send them jpeg exports while you continue to get the benefits of using HEIC.

[@Stilicho19801]

Several years ago my sister told me that an iPhone photo she took could not be opened by a Windows recipient, yet you say shared HEIC files are converted to JPEG format when shared. I do not know what she did, so I have not tried to duplicate her process. Instead, I told her to simply change the format in Camera settings, as you suggest.

[@karishaw1794]

Thank you for the info! HEIC! Always wondered what that meant. But I had to send large amounts of photos to a client and they all went as HEIC. The client couldn't open them! I had to hand convert ALL the files to jpeg. Ugh! But this video helps with future transfers of photos and how to do it. Thank you Gary!

[@MartinHannett_]

I was literally scrolling down to the comments to ask about if Photos app can convert JPEG and H264 content to the newer format 😂 Thanks for the info Gary!

[@GettingClear]

Great explanation, thanks.

[@carolinebarlow4795]

Thanks very much, Gary, for this informative video! This was most interesting and helpful.

[@peterc2248]

Hi Gary, related question.I have several thousand photos on my local hard drive. I want to use the Photo's app to 'manage' them but it always tries to store them in iCloud which I don't want. I do have my everyday phone snapshots in my iCloud account which is great and works well but I want my local photo's managed separately outside of iCloud. Is that possible?

[@macmost]

Yes. Just create a separate library for those. The main downside is that you then need to switch between libraries, but that is OK if those other photos are not something you want to be associated with your personal photos, but work or a separate project.

[@airtac2010]

I do not like the HEIC because Google and Apple when to it and nothing open by default a win or linux pc. It took time to find a app to open it so you could convert it so you could use it. Try upload that file on a web site and you get FAIL. I think the format as a file is OK. It just a problem when nothing know what it is.

[@williamalgat7125]

The wonderful thing about Gary, is that you can learn to drive a fomula 1 car Even if you don't yet know how to drive! Thank you Gary always pleasure to watch your tutorials !

[@loisskiathitis8926]

A very useful and informative video tutorial today! Very interesting! Thank you,Gary!👏🏻❤️

[@teeing9355]

Thanks for the HEIC info, but it still seems like a hassle, I'll stick with JPG for now.

[@Jeep4Wrk]

I always wondered. Now I know. Thanks!

[@geebee2276]

Thanks Gary. So informative as always.

[@garynagle3093]

Great explanation. Thanks!

[@evamaurer6494]

I have a question. When I export a HEVC from photos app and it's stored as H.264, the H.264 is actually smaller in size (25.2 MB for H.264 versus 35.4 for HEVC). This seems like it's opposite of the purpose of HEVC. Does anyone know why that is?

[@macmost]

There are other factors: Video dimensions and video quality. Using smaller dimensions and/or lower quality will get you a smaller file.

[@allaboutferrets]

Excellent tutorial Gary! 👏

[@toddt6730]

I have mov files from an iPhone sent to my android, is there a way to convert those so i can play them

[@macmost]

Not sure what the source of your mov files are, but try just renaming them as mp4 and it will probably work.