Convert PNG to HEIC Online

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.

HEIC is Apple's brand for HEIF (High Efficiency Image File Format), standardized as ISO/IEC 23008-12 in 2015 by the Moving Picture Experts Group. The container is HEIF and the codec is HEVC (H.265), the same compression family behind 4K streaming. Apple switched the iPhone camera default to HEIC with iOS 11 in September 2017, roughly halving on-device photo storage overnight, and the format supports 10-bit color, HDR, alpha transparency, Live Photos, burst sequences, and auxiliary depth maps in a single container. Microsoft added optional HEIF support to Windows 10 in 2018 via a Store extension (historically $0.99), which is why HEIC remains an Apple-first archive format rather than a web delivery format - perfect for shrinking bulky PNGs you'll browse on your own devices.

PNG files - Especially screenshots, design exports, and full-colour illustrations - Are often enormous, because lossless compression handles photographic detail poorly. Converting PNG to HEIC typically shrinks these files by 80–90%: a 4 MB screenshot becomes a few hundred kilobytes at visually identical quality. For large screenshot archives and design libraries stored on Apple devices, the savings are dramatic.

Unlike a PNG-to-JPG conversion, HEIC preserves transparency. A logo or UI asset with an alpha channel keeps its transparent background after conversion, so you get JPG-class file sizes without flattening the image onto a white box. This makes HEIC a genuine like-for-like replacement for PNG in Apple-centric workflows.

The conversion is lossy by default, so keep PNG masters for assets that need pixel-perfect reproduction, and check that the destination supports HEIC - macOS, iOS, and Windows with the HEVC extensions all do, but most websites and older software do not. For maximum-compatibility sharing, PNG to JPG remains the safer route.