Is it safe to convert DOC files I downloaded from the internet?

Conversion itself is safe - heic.now does not execute macros or scripts inside the DOC. However, DOC is a historical malware vector via macro viruses. If a DOC is suspicious, do not open it in Word first; convert directly through the browser, where any embedded macro is inert.

Why heic.now is safe to use

heic.now is a regular HTTPS web app that runs file conversion on its own servers using well-known open-source encoders (Pillow, ImageMagick, mozjpeg, oxipng, libheif, libwebp, etc.). All traffic between your browser and our servers is encrypted in transit. Files are stored on private disks and a private S3-compatible bucket, never on public object URLs.

No software install is required — everything happens in your browser, so there is nothing to download, no plugin to update, and no background process running on your machine.

What we don't do

  • No signup wall. The first 10 conversions per day work without an account — no email, no name, no card.
  • No watermark. Your output is the unmodified result of the encoder. No logo, no border, no overlay.
  • No file scanning. We read the file header to detect the format and validate the size, but we don't open the image for content analysis, OCR, or moderation.
  • No tracking inside files. If you tick "Strip EXIF" we remove GPS coordinates, camera serial numbers and other metadata from the output.

How to verify it for yourself

If you're security-conscious, you can verify behaviour by:

  • Opening your browser's network inspector during a conversion — you'll see exactly one POST to /api/convert and a small set of polls to /api/jobs/<id>.
  • Re-downloading the output file 25 hours later — the link returns a 404 (file purged).
  • Reading the privacy policy and the terms of service in full.
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