# Convert HEIC to AVIF in your browser.

Web page: https://converter.chabulab.com/heic-to-avif/

This is the Markdown version of https://converter.chabulab.com/heic-to-avif/, for a reader that would rather not parse the page's HTML. The converter itself is at https://converter.chabulab.com/ and runs on your own device.

HEIC is what iPhones save photos in. It is efficient, and almost no desktop software can open it. AVIF compresses harder than anything before it, so it gives the smallest file at a given quality, but older browsers cannot display it. This page moves a HEIC to an AVIF in your own browser: the file is read, re-encoded and handed back without being uploaded.

Both formats carry transparency, so a transparent background survives the conversion.

AVIF is a lossy format: the encoder discards detail to make the file smaller, and the quality slider on this page is how you choose how much.

No browser can decode HEIC, so this page ships its own decoder and runs it in a worker on your device. That is what the first HEIC conversion is waiting for.

Encoding AVIF also runs on your device rather than on a server, so a file you would normally hand to a website is written by your own machine.

This page reads HEIC and cannot write it. There is no HEIC encoder here on purpose: files written as HEIC often will not open anywhere else.

## Why convert HEIC to AVIF

- You are optimising for page weight and want the smallest widely supported image format.

- You are building a site that already serves AVIF to browsers that support it.

### What to expect

- AVIF compresses hard, so file sizes are small, but the browser has to support it. The page checks that before offering it.

- Very old browsers cannot display AVIF at all.

### HEIC to AVIF questions

#### Is converting HEIC to AVIF free?

Yes, and there is nothing to unlock. The conversion runs in your browser, so there is
           no account, nothing to pay and no licence key to enter. Every format and every
           feature on the site is available to everyone.

#### Are my HEIC files uploaded anywhere?

No. Your file is decoded and re-encoded inside this tab and never uploaded. The ads on this page are served by Google and do see that you are here, but they never see your file. You can check it yourself: open the network panel and search for a request carrying your picture.

#### Does the AVIF keep transparency?

Yes. Both HEIC and AVIF carry an alpha channel, so a transparent background comes through unchanged.

#### How much quality do I lose converting HEIC to AVIF?

Some, and it depends on the picture and the setting. AVIF is lossy, so it throws away detail the encoder thinks you cannot see. The quality slider is adjustable from 10 to 100 before you convert, and the queue shows you the resulting file size so you can trade one against the other.

#### Can I convert AVIF back to HEIC?

No. There is no HEIC encoder on this page, deliberately: files written as HEIC often will not open in anything else, so producing them here would be worse than not offering it.

#### Do I need to install anything to open a HEIC file?

No. No browser can read HEIC, so this page ships its own decoder and loads it the first time you convert one. The file never leaves your device to be decoded anywhere.

#### Can I open the AVIF file this page gives me?

Not in a browser, not yet. No current browser displays AVIF; it is for software that has its own codec. If you need a file anything will open, convert to JPG or PNG instead.

#### Can I convert more than one HEIC file at once?

Yes. Drop a batch onto the page and every file is converted in the
    queue, then downloaded together. The queue also shows the size before and after, so you
    can see what the conversion saved. There is no cap on how many files you convert at once;
    the only real limit is what your device can hold in memory at the same time.

### Other conversions

- [HEIC to JPG](https://converter.chabulab.com/heic-to-jpg/)

- [HEIC to PNG](https://converter.chabulab.com/heic-to-png/)

- [HEIC to WebP](https://converter.chabulab.com/heic-to-webp/)

- [HEIC to GIF](https://converter.chabulab.com/heic-to-gif/)

- [HEIC to JXL](https://converter.chabulab.com/heic-to-jxl/)

- [PNG to AVIF](https://converter.chabulab.com/png-to-avif/)

- [JPG to AVIF](https://converter.chabulab.com/jpg-to-avif/)