HEIC to PDF

What is the HEIC to PDF Converter?

The HEIC to PDF Converter turns iPhone photos into a single multi-page PDF. Drop your HEIC files in, drag them into the order you want, click convert, download. One step, not two. You don't go through a "convert HEIC to JPG" tool first and then a separate "JPG to PDF" tool — that's two uploads, two downloads, and a Downloads folder full of files you don't want.

Here's why this tool exists. Since iOS 11 (2017), iPhones save photos as HEIC by default. HEIC packs roughly twice as much image into the same file size as JPG — great for your phone's storage. The catch: nothing outside Apple's ecosystem opens HEIC easily. Windows shows a "codec needed" prompt. Android doesn't open it. Slack previews fail. Gmail attaches it but the recipient can't preview. Most upload forms reject HEIC outright. The first thing most people need to do with their iPhone photos when sharing outside iMessage is turn them into something everyone can read — usually PDF.

The conversion runs in your browser. The HEIC decoder is libheif compiled to WebAssembly (via heic2any) — it decodes the photo locally, the result encodes as JPG at 92% quality, and pdf-lib assembles the final PDF. Your photos never leave your machine. No upload. No watermark. No daily limit.

The pain this solves

You took 8 photos of a signed contract on your iPhone. You need to send them to a lawyer who lives in Outlook on Windows. You have three bad options on the open web:

1. The two-step. Convert all 8 HEICs to JPG using one tool (iLoveIMG, CloudConvert, TinyPNG). Download the 8 JPGs. Upload them to a JPG-to-PDF tool (iLovePDF, SmallPDF). Download the PDF. Delete the intermediate JPGs. Total: 16 uploads, 9 downloads, two browser tabs, two privacy policies to trust.
2. The email-to-yourself trick. Email the photos to yourself from your iPhone — iOS will offer to convert HEIC to JPG on send. Save them on your computer. Now you have JPGs. Upload to a JPG-to-PDF tool. Still two steps, and now your email server has copies.
3. The dedicated HEIC-to-PDF tool that uploads. iLovePDF, SmallPDF, and Convertio all offer HEIC-to-PDF as a feature — but every one of them uploads your photos to their servers, processes them, and hands you a download link. For a signed contract, this is the worst option of the three.

This tool collapses it to one step that doesn't upload. Drop, reorder, convert, download. Eight HEICs in, one PDF out. Your photos go from your file system to your browser's memory to the output file. Nothing in between is somebody else's server.

How to use it

Four steps.

1. Drop your HEIC photos onto the page (or click to pick them). Up to 200 MB combined, 50 MB per photo. Multiple photos at once is fine — the order in the list is the order in the PDF.
2. Reorder pages with the arrow buttons next to each thumbnail. Top of the list is page 1. Click the × to remove any photo you didn't mean to include.
3. Click "Convert to PDF." The tool decodes each HEIC to JPG at 92% quality (the photo-PDF sweet spot), then embeds it in the output PDF. Progress shows per photo in the button label — useful for big batches.
4. Click Download. The file is named after your first photo plus a count suffix: IMG_1234.HEIC + 4 more becomes IMG_1234-and-4-more.pdf.

Page size of each PDF page matches the source photo's pixel dimensions, treated as points (72 points per inch). A 4032×3024 iPhone photo produces a 4032×3024-point page. Aspect ratio is preserved. Nothing is cropped or scaled.

What HEIC actually is

A quick primer, because HEIC behaves unlike older image formats and the differences matter for what comes out the other end.

The takeaway: HEIC is technically excellent and practically inconvenient. Apple shipped a great format that nobody else fully supports yet. Converting to PDF (with the photo embedded as JPG inside) is the most reliable way to share an iPhone photo with someone who isn't on an iPhone.

A worked example

Real numbers from a common case.

You're a freelance designer. A client asks for "photos of the signed contract." You snap 6 HEIC photos on your iPhone — pages 1 through 6 of the signed PDF. Each photo is roughly 2.8 MB straight off the camera. You AirDrop them to your Mac.

• Total input: 6 × 2.8 MB = 16.8 MB of HEIC across 6 files.
• Drop all 6 onto the page. They show in upload order; the iPhone names them sequentially (IMG_5821 through IMG_5826) so the upload order is the page order. No reordering needed.
• Click convert. The libheif WASM bundle (≈ 600 KB) loads once. Each photo decodes in ≈ 1.5 seconds on a recent laptop. The button shows "Converting 1 of 6," "Converting 2 of 6," and so on.
• Total convert time: ≈ 10 seconds.
• Output PDF size: ≈ 14.5 MB. Each HEIC decodes to a ≈ 2.4 MB JPG inside the PDF — slightly smaller than the source HEIC because JPG-at-92% trades a tiny bit of quality for a smaller file.
• Output filename: IMG_5821-and-5-more.pdf.
• Time uploading anywhere: zero. The contract photos are in your browser's memory for those 10 seconds, then in your Downloads folder.

The same job through iLovePDF's HEIC-to-PDF flow: upload 16.8 MB to their server (≈ 30 seconds on most home connections), wait in their queue, download 14 MB back. Maybe 90 seconds end to end if their server is uncongested. And six photos of your client's signed contract sat on iLovePDF's hardware for some retention window.

Privacy: the actual difference

Most "free HEIC to PDF converter" results upload your photos. iLovePDF uploads. SmallPDF uploads. Convertio uploads. PDF24 uploads. CloudConvert uploads. Their privacy pages all caveat the basics: "we delete files within X hours," "we may use third-party processors," "anonymized usage data is retained." For a photo of your dog, this is fine. For a photo of your driver's license, your kid's birth certificate, a signed legal document, a medical scan, a tax form, your passport, a credit card — it's worth not having any of that touch somebody else's hardware.

This tool runs the decoder (libheif via WebAssembly), the JPG encode, and the PDF build all inside your browser tab. Open your browser's Network tab during a convert: zero outbound requests. The HEIC files go from your filesystem to memory to the output PDF. They don't go anywhere else.

Limits and honest caveats

A few things to know up front.

• 200 MB combined, 50 MB per photo. Typical iPhone photos are 2–4 MB, so the practical batch is 40–80 photos. For an entire vacation's worth, do it in chunks of 30–40 and merge the resulting PDFs with PDF Merger.
• Live Photos use the still frame. Live Photos are HEIC plus a short MOV file. This tool uses the HEIC part — you get the still frame, one per page. The video component is a separate file and isn't supported in v1; nothing about PDF lets you embed a 1.5-second MOV anyway.
• EXIF metadata is not preserved. Embedded JPGs inside a PDF strip most metadata. If you specifically need EXIF or GPS coordinates kept (for legal evidence, geotag mapping, or photographer's records), convert HEIC → JPG with our HEIC to JPG tool instead. Image converters preserve EXIF natively; PDF doesn't have a standard place to store it per image.
• HEIC only. This tool accepts HEIC and HEIF files. For a mixed batch (HEIC plus JPG plus PNG), use our universal Image to PDF tool, which takes everything in one drop.
• HEIC decode is fast but not instant. The libheif WASM bundle loads on first use (≈ 600 KB, one-time). Each HEIC photo then decodes in roughly 1–3 seconds on a recent laptop, longer on phones. A 20-photo batch takes 30–60 seconds end to end.

Related tools

If you need a different output, or you have a mixed batch:

• HEIC to JPG — when you want individual JPG files instead of a PDF (preserves EXIF/GPS).
• HEIC to PNG — when you want lossless JPG-free PNG files (much bigger, but pixel-perfect).
• Image to PDF — the universal accepter. Mixes HEIC, JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF, BMP in one batch.
• JPG to PDF — once you have JPGs, this is the format-specific entry point.

After you've made the PDF:

• PDF Merger — stitch your photo PDF together with other PDFs (cover letter, invoice, supporting docs).
• Compress PDF — shrink the output if the recipient has a strict email attachment limit.
• Rotate PDF — for the inevitable sideways page from a photo taken in portrait that the converter read as landscape.
• Sign PDF — if the photos were of an unsigned contract and you need to add your signature to the output.

Frequently asked questions

Why a dedicated HEIC to PDF tool instead of HEIC → JPG → PDF in two steps?

Because doing it in one step is faster and produces a cleaner output filename. The conversion pipeline is identical — HEIC decodes to JPG internally, then embeds in the PDF — but you don't end up with intermediate JPG files in your Downloads folder, and the output PDF is named from your photo filenames automatically.

What's the page size of the PDF?

Each PDF page is sized to its source photo's exact pixel dimensions, in points (72 points per inch). A 4032×3024 photo produces a 4032×3024 point page. Aspect ratio preserved, no cropping or scaling. If you need uniform US Letter or A4 pages, resize the photos first.

Is my photo really not uploaded?

Yes. The whole pipeline runs in your browser: heic2any (libheif compiled to WebAssembly) decodes HEIC, pdf-lib builds the PDF. Your bytes go from your file system to the browser's memory to the output PDF — never to a server. Check the Network tab during convert; zero outbound requests.

Can I mix HEIC, JPG, and PNG in the same PDF?

Not in this tool — HEIC to PDF only accepts HEIC files. For mixed inputs, use our Image to PDF tool, which accepts every common format in one drop. The tools are split by input type because that's how people search for them.

Why is the PDF so big?

Each photo is stored at its original resolution. A 3 MB HEIC decodes to roughly a 2–3 MB JPG inside the PDF, and 10 photos make a ≈ 25–30 MB PDF. To shrink: resize the photos before converting, or run the result through Compress PDF.

Does it work with iPhone Live Photos?

Yes, but only the still frame. Live Photos are HEIC plus a short MOV file. The tool uses the HEIC part — you get the still frame, one per page. The video component is a separate file and isn't supported.

What's the maximum file size or photo count?

200 MB combined, 50 MB per photo. Most iPhone photos are 2–4 MB; 40–80 photos fit easily within the cap. For larger batches, do them in chunks and merge the resulting PDFs with our PDF Merger.

Does the PDF preserve photo metadata (EXIF, GPS)?

No — embedded JPGs in a PDF strip most metadata. If you need EXIF/GPS preserved, convert HEIC → JPG with our HEIC to JPG tool instead. PDF doesn't have a standard place to store per-image EXIF; image converters preserve it natively.