How to Easily Convert JPG Images to HEIC on iPhone

Apple’s HEIC format saves photos at only half the size of a traditional JPEG image, with no noticeable reduction in visual quality. It’s incredible, isn’t it? That’s why Apple made it the default camera photo format on iPhone. In short, HEIC is very helpful when it comes to storage management.

However, your iPhone may end up with JPG images that consume tons of space, especially those that are automatically downloaded via social media apps. It’s best to convert them to HEIC format if you want to free up some space. But how?

Using a third-party file converter for the task can put sensitive images at risk. So I will show you how to convert JPG images to HEIC using just your iPhone. You have to create a shortcut for it.

Do not worry. Creating the shortcut is easy. Once you set one, you can convert batches of JPG photos to HEIC format in one go.

How to Create a Shortcut to Convert JPG to HEIC

To create a shortcut that allows you to convert JPG images to HEIC format, you must have the Shortcuts app installed on your iPhone. If you can’t find it, get it from the App Store – it’s free.

But before you start, it’s best to create a separate album to save your converted HEIC images. This will make it much easier to find them after performing a conversion with the shortcut we’re about to create.

To create one, go to Photos > Albums > New Album – name it ‘HEIC’ or something else along these lines.

Everything is ready? Lets start then.

Stage 1: Open the Shortcuts app on your iPhone or iPad.

Step 2: Switch to the My Shortcuts tab and then click Create Shortcut. Tap on ‘Search for apps and actions’ at the bottom of the screen.

Stage 3: Do a search for ‘Choose photo’ and then tap Select Photo under Actions. Next, expand the Select Photos action (tap Show More) and then turn on the switch next to Select Multiple.

Step 4: Tap ‘Search for apps and actions’ again, this time search for ‘transform image’ and then tap Transform Image under Actions.

Next, change the Convert Image action from Default Convert Photos to JPEG to Convert Photos to HEIF – to do this, tap JPEG and then select HEIF.

It’s also a good idea to expand the action (tap Show More) and confirm the switch next to Preserve Metadata is on.

Step 5: Tap ‘Search for apps and actions’ once again, do a search for ‘save to photo album’ and then tap Save to Photo Album under Actions.

If you have created an album to save the converted HEIC images, select it now — tap Recents and then select the corresponding album from the drop-down list.

In my case, I selected an album called HEIC that I created earlier. If you don’t want to save the photos to a specific album, just leave the action as it is. Finally, tap Next.

Step 6: Name the shortcut (for example, from JPG to HEIC) and then tap Done.

The shortcut is created and ready to go – it’s time to take its steps.

How to Convert JPG to HEIC with Shortcut

You can run the shortcut you just created through the Shortcuts app. Alternatively, you can run it via the Shortcuts widget or Siri (Hey Siri, say ‘shortcut name’).

But before you start, you may want to add the JPG images you are about to convert into a separate album in the Photos app. That way, if what you’re after is to free up storage space, you can easily delete them after conversion to avoid photo duplicates.

Stage 1: Run the JPG to HEIC shortcut. Use the displayed Photos app image picker to select the JPEG images you want to convert – you can select as many images as you want. Tap Done to start the conversion process.

Step 2: The shortcut will show the conversion progress. Once done, go to the corresponding album in the Photos app to check the converted images.

Stage 3: Confirm that the photos are in HEIC format (if desired). The Photos app doesn’t let you control an image’s file format, so I recommend using Google Photos for the job.

Select a converted photo in Google Photos, tap the three-dot icon in the top-right corner of the screen and you should see the file format listed under Details.

If you created the shortcut correctly, you should have the images converted to HEIC format. If everything looks fine, you can delete the JPG originals.

high efficiency

Converting JPEG images to HEIC format is incredibly easy with the shortcut you just created. It has to suffer from an ad-loaded file converter, right?

Note that converted HEIC images won’t gain any of the other benefits (wider color gamut, depth maps, etc.)

Next: Want to convert HEIC images to JPG format instead? Here’s how to do it.