How to Open a HEIC File on Windows

You double-click a photo someone sent you, or one you just downloaded, and Windows either shows a blank gray thumbnail or pops up "Windows Photo Viewer can't open this picture." Right-click and check the file extension: it's .HEIC. So what's actually going on, and how do you get the thing open?

Why Windows doesn't open HEIC out of the box

HEIC photos are compressed with HEVC, the same video codec family used for some 4K footage, and it isn't free for a company to ship. Apple pays for an HEVC license once and bakes decoding into every Mac and iPhone, which is exactly why iPhones save photos as HEIC by default in the first place. Microsoft made a different call: instead of licensing it for every Windows install, HEVC support is an optional add-on you install yourself. That's not a bug or an oversight, just a different cost tradeoff — and it means a fresh Windows install genuinely can't read HEIC files until you add that piece.

Fix it for good: two free extensions from the Microsoft Store

This is the permanent fix — do it once and every HEIC file works from then on, in File Explorer thumbnails, the Photos app, everywhere.

1. Open the Microsoft Store app (search for it from the Start menu).
2. Search for HEIF Image Extensions and install it. It's free, and it's what teaches Windows to recognize the HEIC container format.
3. That alone isn't quite enough — it still needs an actual HEVC decoder to read the image data inside. Search the Store for HEVC Video Extensions from Device Manufacturer. It's also free, though it doesn't show up for every account or region.
4. If step 3 doesn't turn up anything, look for plain HEVC Video Extensions instead. It's the same codec, just sold directly for about a dollar rather than distributed free through a device manufacturer's license.
5. Once both are installed, reopen File Explorer. Thumbnails and previews for HEIC files start working right away, no restart required.

Or convert it on the spot, without installing anything

If it's a single photo and you don't want to install anything — or it's not your computer — converting it to JPG is faster. The catch is that whatever you convert it with needs to be able to read HEIC in the first place, and Windows browsers genuinely can't, for the same codec reason as above. What can: Safari, on a Mac or an iPhone.

If you've got one of those nearby, open img-compress's HEIC to JPG converter there — it reads the file directly in the browser and hands you back a JPG, no account and nothing uploaded anywhere. A plain JPG needs no extension at all; it'll open on any Windows PC afterward.

Which one is actually worth doing

For a single photo someone happened to send you, converting it on a Mac or iPhone wins — it's done before the Microsoft Store would even finish loading. If HEIC photos land in your inbox regularly, though — a family member with an iPhone, say — the two extensions above are worth the couple of minutes: install once, and the problem stops coming back.