The problem in one sentence
iPhone photos are saved in HEIC format, which uses HEVC compression — and HEVC is covered by patents that Microsoft chose not to license for free in Windows.
That's the whole story. Everything else is context. But the context is worth understanding, because it explains why this is not a bug, why it will not quietly disappear in a Windows update, and why Apple can include the same support for free while Microsoft cannot.
What HEIC actually is
HEIC stands for High Efficiency Image Container. It is a file format — a container — based on the ISOBMFF standard (ISO Base Media File Format), the same container used for MP4 video. Inside that container, HEIC stores image data compressed using HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding), also known as H.265.
HEVC is a video codec — the same technology used to compress 4K streaming video on Netflix and YouTube. Apple's insight was that a video codec designed for compressing sequences of frames would also work exceptionally well on single images, because a photograph is essentially a video with one frame. The result: HEIC files are typically 40–50% smaller than equivalent JPEGs at the same visual quality.
Apple made HEIC the default camera format with iOS 11 in September 2017. Every iPhone from the 8 and X onwards captures photos in HEIC by default, producing an estimated several billion HEIC images per day worldwide.
The HEVC patent pool — why it costs money
HEVC was developed collaboratively by two standards bodies: the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) and the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG), working together as the Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding (JCT-VC). The standard was finalized in 2013. It is technically excellent — but it came with a licensing problem.
Hundreds of patents from dozens of companies cover HEVC. These patents are pooled under two main licensing bodies: MPEG LA (which covers the broadest set of essential patents) and HEVC Advance (which covers an additional set). To distribute software or hardware that encodes or decodes HEVC, a company must license from both pools.
MPEG LA's HEVC license caps royalties for content distributors but charges manufacturers per device. At the scale of Windows — which runs on hundreds of millions of devices — bundling a free HEVC decoder means paying a significant royalty bill. The exact per-unit fee is not public, but industry estimates place it in the range of $0.20 per device, which at Windows scale would amount to tens of millions of dollars annually.
Why Apple can do it and Microsoft can't — or won't
This is the part most articles skip. Apple is not exempt from HEVC licensing — they pay for it. The difference is in how they pay and why the economics work differently for them.
Apple is a contributing member of the MPEG LA patent pool. Apple itself holds HEVC-related patents and contributes them to the consortium. As a pool member, Apple negotiated a license that covers use of HEVC across its hardware and software ecosystem — iOS, macOS, and Apple Silicon — as part of its participation terms. Apple also sells the hardware: every iPhone, Mac, and Apple TV that ships with HEVC support generates revenue that absorbs the licensing cost.
Microsoft's situation is different. Windows is licensed to device manufacturers (OEMs) and end users, not always sold with hardware. Bundling HEVC support in Windows for free would mean absorbing the codec royalty for every Windows installation — including the free upgrades Microsoft has distributed since Windows 10. The commercial calculus did not favor inclusion.
The solution Microsoft chose: sell the HEVC Video Extensions in the Microsoft Store for $0.99. This puts the royalty cost on users who specifically need it, rather than spreading it across all Windows users. Some OEMs — particularly certain Surface devices and laptops sold with Windows — pre-license HEVC as part of their hardware deals, which is why some Windows machines open HEIC without any extra steps while most do not.
Why JPEG opens everywhere for free
JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) was standardized in 1992. The patents covering JPEG compression began expiring in the early 2000s and were largely exhausted by 2006–2007. This means JPEG is effectively royalty-free today — any software developer can implement a JPEG decoder without a licensing agreement.
Microsoft included a JPEG decoder in Windows since Windows 95. Thirty years of free bundling, combined with expired patents, means JPEG opens in every application on every platform without exception. It is the universal baseline not because it is technically superior — HEIC produces better results at smaller sizes — but because its legal encumbrances are gone.
HEVC patents, by contrast, will not begin expiring until approximately 2027–2028, with the pool fully clearing around 2033. Until then, the licensing friction remains.
The timeline: how millions of people ended up with unreadable photos
June 2017: Apple announces iOS 11 will switch the default camera format from JPEG to HEIC, citing storage efficiency. The decision is made for devices with A10 Fusion chips and newer — essentially every iPhone 7 and up.
September 2017: iOS 11 ships. Every iPhone 8 and iPhone X now captures in HEIC by default. Users who do not manually change a setting in Camera → Formats will produce HEIC files from this point on.
October 2017: Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (version 1709) adds partial HEIC support — but only on devices that already have a HEVC decoder installed. Most consumer PCs do not. File Explorer thumbnails for HEIC remain broken on the vast majority of Windows machines.
2018 onwards: Millions of people AirDrop, USB-transfer, or email photos from updated iPhones to Windows PCs and discover that the files cannot be opened, previewed, or attached to emails. The HEIC incompatibility problem becomes one of the most-searched photo troubleshooting issues on the web.
2021: Microsoft releases an updated Photos app for Windows 11 with improved HEIC handling — but still only for devices with a HEVC license. The fundamental licensing barrier remains unchanged.
Will this ever be fixed permanently?
The HEVC licensing problem is unlikely to be resolved for HEIC specifically. But the broader problem — modern image formats incompatible with older software — may be addressed by a different format: AVIF.
AVIF (AV1 Image File Format) uses the AV1 video codec, developed by the Alliance for Open Media — a consortium that includes Apple, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Mozilla, Amazon, and others. AV1 was specifically designed to be royalty-free: the member companies cross-licensed their relevant patents to make the codec available at no charge. AVIF achieves compression efficiency similar to HEIC but without the licensing problem.
Microsoft added AVIF support to Windows 11 in 2021. Chrome has supported AVIF since 2020, Firefox since 2021, Safari since 2022. If Apple were to switch iPhones from HEIC to AVIF as their default camera format, the compatibility problem would eventually disappear as Windows and other software adopt the royalty-free codec. Whether Apple will make that switch — and when — remains an open question.
The fastest fix right now
While the standards bodies and platform makers work out long-term compatibility, the practical solution is straightforward: convert HEIC to JPEG before sharing or transferring photos to non-Apple systems.
JPEG opens in every application on every platform. The conversion can be done entirely in your browser — no software install, no Microsoft Store payment, no cloud upload. The converter at the top of this page uses a WebAssembly build oflibheifto decode HEIC locally on your device and re-encode it as JPEG using MozJPEG at quality 85. EXIF metadata — GPS location, timestamp, camera model — is preserved.
For batch conversion (an entire camera roll or a folder of event photos), drop the whole folder at once. Each file converts independently in a background thread. Individual JPGs are always free; a ZIP of all converted files is $0.50.
Alternatively: on your iPhone, go to Settings → Camera → Formats → Most Compatible. This changes future photos to JPEG. Photos already taken remain as HEIC and need to be converted individually.
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