Why Are My Photos HEIC?

Your iPhone saves photos as HEIC because the format stores the same picture in roughly half the space a JPG needs. On a phone holding several thousand photos that is a great deal of storage, and Apple switched the default in iOS 11 to claim it. Nothing is wrong with your phone or your settings.

The catch is everything that is not an Apple device, where the file often will not open at all. If that is what brought you here, the fastest route is to convert the photos to JPG — it happens in your browser, and the photos are not uploaded anywhere.

How to make your iPhone shoot JPEG instead

• Open Settings → Camera → Formats.
• Choose Most Compatible. The camera shoots JPEG from that moment on.
• High Efficiency is the HEIC setting, and it is the default.

This changes nothing about the photos already in your library — those stay HEIC and still need converting. It also gives up the space saving on everything you shoot afterwards, which on a 128 GB phone is a real trade rather than a formality.

Is HEIC actually worse than JPG?

No — it is the better format by almost every technical measure. It holds more colour information, supports transparency and sequences, and compresses far more efficiently. Its problem is purely one of support: HEVC compression carries patent licensing that most software vendors have declined to pay, so the format is excellent and unopenable at the same time.

That is why converting is the sensible answer rather than switching your camera setting. Keep the efficient format on the phone, and make a JPG at the moment you need to send one somewhere.