The switch: Camera → Formats → Most Compatible

Settings → Camera → Formats gives you two choices:

• High Efficiency — HEIF/HEVC for photos and video. Default on every modern iPhone. Smaller files, HDR headroom.
• Most Compatible — JPEG for photos, H.264 for video. The “everything just opens” option.

Tap Most Compatible and every new photo is a plain .jpg — done. It applies to the main camera, selfies, Portrait mode and screenshots-adjacent captures (screenshots themselves are always PNG either way).

What you trade for it

• ~2× the storage per photo. A typical shot goes from ~2 MB to ~4 MB. On a 256 GB phone that’s the difference between ~60k and ~30k photos before iCloud math.
• 10-bit HDR becomes 8-bit. On the phone’s own screen you lose a little highlight/shadow depth; most people can’t tell side-by-side.
• ProRAW / ProRes users: the Formats page also gates Apple ProRAW and ProRes switches — check those separately if you shoot either.
• Live Photos and bursts still work — they’re just packaged differently.

The smarter option most people miss: transfer conversion

Settings → Photos → Transfer to Mac or PC controls what happens when files leave the phone over USB:

• Automatic — iOS converts HEIC→JPEG (and HEVC→H.264) during the copy. You keep HEIC’s storage savings on the phone and JPEG’s compatibility on the PC. Best of both.
• Keep Originals — files transfer bit-for-bit as .heic.

If your HEIC problem only appears when moving photos to a computer, leave the camera on High Efficiency and make sure this is on Automatic — you may never need to think about formats again.

For the HEIC library you already have

Changing settings does nothing retroactively. Options for existing files:

• On the phone: the Shortcuts app’s Convert Image action can batch-convert a selected album to JPEG and save back to Photos.
• On a Mac: open in Preview → File → Export → JPEG, or sips -s format jpeg for whole folders.
• Anywhere, no install: drop the files into the converter on this site — it decodes HEIC locally in the browser and hands back JPG/PNG/WebP, batches included.

Our honest recommendation

Keep High Efficiency + Automatic transfer. You get the storage win where you live (the phone) and compatibility where it matters (everywhere else). Switch to Most Compatible only if you constantly hand files to HEIC-hostile workflows — enterprise upload forms, older Windows machines without codec rights, embedded viewers — and the conversion step keeps wasting your time.

Frequently asked questions

Will Most Compatible make my photos worse?

Marginally — JPEG is still excellent for photos, but you lose 10-bit HDR depth, Live Photos keep working (stored differently), and files roughly double in size. The visible difference on-screen is nil for most shots; the storage difference is real.

Does changing the setting convert my existing HEIC photos?

No — it only affects new captures. For the existing library, convert selectively (the tool on this site, or the iOS Shortcuts 'Convert Image' action) or let the Automatic transfer setting handle it when you copy files off.

Why do my HEIC photos arrive as JPG on my PC anyway?

Because Settings → Photos → 'Transfer to Mac or PC' is set to Automatic — iOS transcodes to JPEG during USB copies. If it were on 'Keep Originals', you'd get .heic files.

Is there a per-photo way to choose?

Not natively — the format switch is global. The practical per-photo approach is shooting HEIC (smaller, HDR) and converting only the files you share or export.