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How to Open HEIC Files on Windows 10 Without Paying for the HEVC Extension

Windows tells you the file cannot be opened and points you at the Microsoft Store. You do not need it. Drop the photos below and they appear on this page in seconds — no codec, no install, no purchase.

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HEIC viewer and converter

Drop your HEIC photos here

or pick them from your PC — previews appear below in seconds

Supports .heic and .heif from iPhone, iPad and modern Android cameras

Nothing open yet. Dropped photos are decoded here and displayed full size.

Why Windows will not open a .heic file

The photo is not broken and your PC is not misconfigured. A HEIC file wraps image data compressed with HEVC, and HEVC is covered by patent pools that charge licensing fees per device. Apple pays those fees for its own hardware, which is why the iPhone that took the photo displays it without a thought. Microsoft chose not to absorb that cost across every Windows installation, so Windows ships without the decoder.

What you get instead is a paywall in two parts. HEIF Image Extensions is free in the Microsoft Store, but it cannot decode anything on its own — it depends on HEVC Video Extensions, which is the paid listing, commonly around a dollar. A free build exists for PCs whose manufacturer already licensed the codec, but it was pulled from public Store search, so most people never find it. Windows 7 and 8 have no route at all.

How PixHeic gets around it

PixHeic carries its own decoder. When this page loads it fetches libheif compiled to WebAssembly, a small binary that runs inside your browser tab at close to native speed. Your operating system is never asked to open the file - the page does the decoding itself, then paints the pixels onto a canvas and hands you a standard JPG. Nothing is installed, nothing is licensed to your machine, and nothing is uploaded.

  1. Drag your HEIC photos into the converter

    Drop them onto the box above, straight from File Explorer, or press Select Files. Decoding starts by itself.

  2. View or download them as standard JPGs

    Each photo appears on the page as it finishes. Save any one of them as a JPG, or take the whole batch as a ZIP.

Frequently asked questions

Why does Microsoft charge for HEVC extensions?

Because HEVC is patented, and the pools that hold those patents charge per device or per copy. Microsoft passes the cost on through a paid Store listing rather than absorbing it across every Windows install.

Apple pays the same fees for its own hardware, which is the whole reason the format feels seamless on an iPhone and hostile on a PC. A free OEM build of the codec ships preinstalled on some laptops whose maker already licensed it, but it was removed from public Store listings, so most people only ever see the paid one.

Is it safe to convert private photos online?

With most converters, that is a real question worth asking: they upload your photo to a server, and retention, access and deletion are things you simply have to trust. For anything sensitive, that is a genuine risk.

PixHeic works differently. The decoder is a WebAssembly module that runs inside your browser tab, so the photo is read from your disk into memory on your own PC and never transmitted. You can check this yourself: open your browser's developer tools, watch the Network tab while you convert, and see that nothing is sent. Or disconnect from the internet once the page has loaded — conversion still works.

Does this work on Windows 10 and Windows 11?

Both, and on Windows 7 and 8 as well - along with Chromebooks and Linux desktops, which have no HEIC support of their own either. Nothing is installed on the machine and no codec is required, because the browser does the work. Any current version of Chrome, Edge or Firefox will do.