After my sister's wedding I had 412 HEIC files on a hard drive and a mother who wanted them in Google Photos — which, on her Android phone, meant “please not HEIC.”
I have done smaller batches before. This was the first time I paid attention to quality settings, folder order, and browser memory instead of clicking randomly.
Before you convert anything
Copy, don't move. Keep the HEIC folder untouched. Conversion is one-way enough that you do not want to discover a bad setting after deleting originals.
Rough sort first. I make 01-ceremony, 02-reception, 03-misc. Converting everything flat into one JPG dump is how you get duplicate names and chaos.
Close heavy apps. Browser conversion uses RAM. Chrome with forty tabs and a game running is how you freeze mid-batch.
Quality: what actually changed when I tested
I picked one representative photo (mixed skin tones, white dress, dark suit — classic torture test) and converted at:
- 60% JPG — visible softness on faces. Nope.
- 80% — I could not tell on a phone screen. Good enough for sharing.
- 95% — slightly larger files, no obvious win for family viewing.
- PNG — huge files, perfect pixels, overkill for Google Photos.
For the wedding archive I used JPG at 82%. For a print album order I re-exported 12 picks at 95%.
Your eyes may differ. Test one file before doing hundreds.
Browser vs desktop for big batches
Desktop (XnConvert, etc.)
- Pros: offline, scriptable, no tab crash anxiety
- Cons: install, learning curve, another app to update
Browser HEIC to JPG converter
- Pros: nothing to install, easy on someone else's machine
- Cons: limited by RAM; you should chunk very large sets
I did the wedding in three browser sessions (~140 files each) because the laptop had 8GB RAM. No drama.
Chunking strategy that worked
- Subfolder by event segment (~100–150 files).
- Drag folder into the converter.
- Convert → download ZIP.
- Unzip to
jpg/01-ceremonyetc. - Close tab, reopen fresh (clears memory), next chunk.
Trying all 412 at once on that hardware would have been optimistic.
Filenames and duplicates
iPhones reset IMG_0001 across days. After batch export you get collisions if you flatten folders.
Fix: keep subfolders, or rename with a prefix (sat_IMG_0001.jpg).
What failed (and why)
- Two files — corrupt from an interrupted USB copy. Re-copied from the phone; fine.
- One “HEIC” — was actually a mislabeled PNG from a third-party app. Converter complained; renamed and handled separately.
- Live Photos — only still frame exported. Fine for the album; not the motion part.
Time expectations (not marketing numbers)
On that 8GB laptop, ~140 files per batch was about 4–6 minutes end-to-end including download ZIP and unzip. Your CPU matters. M1 MacBook would crush this; old Atom would suffer.
After conversion
- Spot-check 5 random JPGs and the first/last in each chunk.
- Upload or share from the JPG tree only.
- Keep HEIC masters on cold storage if you have the disk space — Apple edits sometimes want them.
When PNG is worth the size
Screenshots with text, graphics with sharp edges, or images you will edit heavily — PNG. For 400 candid photos? JPG.
Big batches are tedious but mechanical. Pick a quality once, chunk by RAM, keep folders structured.
If you are staring at a huge HEIC folder right now: batch HEIC to JPG here, start with ten files, lock your quality, then scale up.