High Efficiency Image File Format

Writable

image

The High Efficiency Image File Format (HEIF) is an image format standard defined in ISO/IEC 23008-12 - MPEG-H Part 12. HEIF can store images, image properties, thumbnails and other derivatives, plus image metadata. It can support individual images and image sequences At this time the PRONOM identification signature does not distinguish between individual images and image sequences although this may be desirable.

Identify it

Extensions	`.heic.heif.heifs`
MIME types	`image/heicimage/heifimage/heic-sequenceimage/heif-sequence`
Signatures	`66747970` at byte 4 (HEIF)
PRONOM	`fmt/1101`
Wikidata	`Q24907733`
Library of Congress	`fdd000525fdd000526`

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Open it

digiKamOpen sourcereads and writes · GNU General Public License, version 2.0 or later
GIMPOpen sourcereads and writes · GNU General Public License, version 3.0
libheifOpen sourcereads and writes · GNU Lesser General Public License, version 3.0 or later / MIT License
ImageMagickOpen sourcereads · ImageMagick License
PhotoRecOpen sourcereads · GNU General Public License
PixenOpen sourcereads · MIT License
Q141647660Open sourcereads · Apache Software License 2.0 / MIT License
ShotwellOpen sourcereads · GNU Lesser General Public License, version 2.1 or later
Canon EOS R50writes
Fujifilm GFX100 IIwrites
Zoner Photo Studiowrites
Acorn Image Editorreads
Adobe Photoshop Elementsreads
Affinity Photoreads
Microsoft Photosreads · Microsoft end-user license agreement
PDF Gurureads
Q140074832reads
Q472277reads · freeware

Convert it

To	With	Fidelity	Command and losses
Portable Network Graphics	ImageMagick	Lossless	`convert in.heic out.png` Pixels kept; some metadata, colour profiles or layers may be dropped.
Tagged Image File Format	ImageMagick	Lossless	`convert in.heic out.tif` Pixels kept; some metadata, colour profiles or layers may be dropped.
GIF 89a	ImageMagick	Lossy	`convert in.heic out.gif` Reduced to 256 colours.
JPEG File Interchange Format 1.02	ImageMagick	Lossy	`convert in.heic out.jpg` Lossy compression.
WebP	ImageMagick	Lossy	`convert in.heic out.webp` Lossy compression.

Sources

From Converters (FFmpeg, ImageMagick, Pandoc, LibreOffice), Just Solve the File Format Problem (File Formats Wiki), PRONOM, Wikidata. Updated 2026-10-24.

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