Will converting PNG to HEIC reduce quality?

PNG is a lossless format - It stores every pixel exactly, producing large files that are often unnecessary for photographs and detailed imagery. Converting PNG to HEIC applies HEVC (H.265) compression, the same engine behind Apple's iPhone camera format, which can shrink photographic PNGs by 80–95%. HEIC is roughly twice as efficient as JPEG, so it is the strongest choice when storage savings are the goal.

Unlike converting PNG to JPG, transparency survives. HEIC supports a full alpha channel, so transparent areas in your PNG are preserved rather than flattened onto a white background. That makes PNG→HEIC viable for logos and cut-out graphics, not just photographs - Provided the files stay within HEIC-aware software.

That is the key caveat: compatibility. HEIC opens natively on Apple devices and in modern Adobe tools, but Windows needs the HEVC Video Extensions codec (historically $0.99), most websites and upload forms reject HEIC, and older Android devices can't display it. Convert PNG to HEIC for Apple-ecosystem archives and storage savings; keep PNG or JPG for anything you plan to share widely.

Reasons to convert PNG to HEIC usually come down to compatibility, file-size, or specific feature requirements. Common situations:

• An app or platform only accepts HEIC uploads.
• You need a feature unique to HEIC (e.g. transparency, vector scaling, animation, multi-page pages, etc.) that PNG doesn't provide.
• You're optimising file size — modern formats often produce smaller files than the older format you started with.
• You need a single archival format across a project so files behave consistently in the same viewer.

1. Open the PNG → HEIC tool on heic.now.
2. Drag your PNG file onto the drop zone, or click Select files. You can drop a whole folder of files at once.
3. The output is fixed to HEIC. If the format supports extra options (page size, transparency background, quality, EXIF stripping), tweak them in the right-hand panel.
4. Click Convert. 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.

• Use quality 80–90% for photographic PNG sources - HEVC is efficient enough that higher settings add bytes without visible benefit.
• Transparency is preserved automatically - No background fill colour is needed, unlike PNG-to-JPG conversion.
• For UI screenshots and images with sharp text, remember HEIC is lossy - Keep the PNG as your master copy and use the HEIC for space-constrained storage.
• Check the destination before converting: if the files are headed to a website, CMS, or non-Apple recipient, HEIC will likely be rejected - JPG or WebP travels better.