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How to Convert HEIC to PNG on Mac

Convert iPhone HEIC photos to PNG on a Mac with Kompressor, the Finder Quick Action, Preview or the Terminal. In our test the PNG files were 6.7 times larger.

Steps

  1. Download Kompressor for Mac or get it on the Mac App Store
  2. Open the Kompressor app
  3. Drag and drop your HEIC image(s) into Kompressor
  4. Select PNG as your output format
  5. Adjust compression settings as needed
  6. Click on the ▷ (play) button to convert your HEIC image(s) offline

Kompressor is free to try: you get 3 conversions, and each conversion can include as many images as you want.

Should you convert HEIC to PNG?

Usually not. PNG is a lossless format for graphics, and it makes very large files from photos. If you need a photo that opens everywhere, convert HEIC to JPG.

PNG is the correct choice in a few cases:

  • An app or a form accepts only PNG.
  • You want to edit the photo many times and do not want a quality loss each time you save.

How large are the PNG files? Our test

We converted 32 iPhone photos (HEIC, most of them 12 megapixels, 56.5 MB in total) to PNG. The PNG files had a total size of 378.8 MB, which is 6.7 times the size of the originals. The same photos as JPEG at 80% quality needed 75.8 MB.

Tested in November 2026 with the conversion engine of Kompressor on a MacBook Pro (M3 Max, 14 cores) with macOS 27. Your results depend on the images.

Other ways to convert HEIC to PNG on Mac

Finder Quick Action

Select the images in Finder, right-click and choose Quick Actions > Convert Image. Select PNG and a size. This is the fastest built-in method. It offers only JPEG, PNG and HEIF, and it has no quality control.

Preview

  1. Select the images in Finder and open them with Preview. They open in one window.
  2. Click a thumbnail in the sidebar and press ⌘A to select all.
  3. Choose File > Export Selected Images, click Options and select PNG.

Preview is free and already on your Mac. It applies one setting to all images without a preview of the result.

Terminal (sips)

sips is part of macOS and converts a whole folder with one command:

mkdir converted
sips -s format png *.heic --out converted

The file name pattern is case-sensitive. If the names of your files end in .HEIC, write *.HEIC.

There is no preview, so you must open the results to check them.

When Kompressor is the better tool

Kompressor shows the size of the PNG result before you convert, so there are no surprises on your disk. It can resize the photos in the same step, which is the best way to keep PNG files of photos small.

Questions

Does PNG have a quality setting?

No. PNG is always lossless. To get smaller PNG files, reduce the pixel size of the images.

Is the location of my photos removed?

Kompressor removes metadata by default. Set Metadata to Keep if you want to keep it.

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