Can I compress multiple files at once?

HEIC is already an efficient format - Its HEVC (H.265) compression packs the same visual quality into roughly half the bytes of a JPEG. But iPhone camera defaults prioritise quality, and 48 MP ProRAW-adjacent captures can still weigh 3–8 MB each. Compressing a HEIC re-encodes it at a lower quality setting: higher quality retains more data and produces a larger file; lower quality produces a smaller file with more visible artefacts, particularly in smooth gradients and flat areas.

The practical sweet spot is 70–85% quality. HEVC degrades more gracefully than JPEG, so even fairly aggressive settings hold up well on photographic content. Above 90%, file size grows rapidly for minimal visual gain. Below 60%, softness and smearing become noticeable in fine texture such as hair, foliage, and fabric.

EXIF metadata - Camera model, lens, GPS coordinates, shooting parameters - Adds weight to every photo and, more importantly, reveals exactly where the photo was taken. Stripping it is completely free file-size reduction with zero visual impact, and a sensible privacy step before sharing iPhone photos publicly.

You typically reach for Compress HEIC when a HEIC file is too large for its destination. Common situations include:

• Email attachments – Gmail caps at 25 MB, Outlook at 20 MB; a single phone photo is often 6–10 MB.
• Upload portals – real-estate listing sites, school portals and insurance forms commonly cap each file at 2–5 MB.
• Web performance – compressing hero images and gallery photos directly improves Core Web Vitals scores and reduces bandwidth costs.
• Storage – when archiving thousands of photos to a cloud drive, a 70–80% size reduction at quality 85 is invisible to the eye.

1. Open the Compress HEIC tool on heic.now.
2. Drag your HEIC file onto the drop zone, or click Select files. You can drop a whole folder of files at once.
3. Pick a compression preset (Small, Balanced, High, Max) or move the quality slider for fine-grained control. Higher quality = larger file.
4. Click Compress. The job runs on our server and finishes in a few seconds for typical photos.
5. Download the result. Files stay in storage for 24 hours and are then permanently deleted.

The entire flow is free for the first 10 jobs per day with no signup required. A free account doubles that quota; a premium plan removes the limit entirely.

• Set quality to 75–85% for shared photos - This typically delivers 30–60% file-size savings that are invisible at normal viewing distances and screen sizes.
• Always strip EXIF metadata for images published online - It removes GPS location data recorded by your iPhone and shaves additional bytes at no visual cost.
• Resize before compressing: reducing a 48 MP capture to 1920 px wide saves far more data than any quality setting alone.
• Remember the output is still HEIC - If the recipient is on Windows or Android, convert to JPG instead so they can actually open the file.
• Never compress the same HEIC repeatedly - Each HEVC re-encode adds cumulative artefacts ('generation loss'). Always work from the original photo.