A batch HEIC to JPG converter for Mac that keeps what matters

Every photo an iPhone takes is a HEIC unless you told it otherwise. It is a good format — roughly half the size of a JPEG at the same quality — and it is quietly incompatible with a great deal of the world: older software, some printers, a client’s Windows machine, plenty of web upload forms. So sooner or later a folder of them needs to become JPEGs, and once there are more than a handful of files, how that happens starts to matter.

Archyv is a Mac app that converts the whole folder in one run, from a saved recipe: the format, size, quality, colour space and — the part most converters leave to chance — what happens to the metadata, all decided once and applied to every file, with the originals left untouched. Below: how the conversion is set up, what converting does to quality, size and metadata — and, at the end, what Preview, sips, Shortcuts and the online converters get you if you would rather not install anything.

Converting a batch with a saved recipe

Archyv’s Image Conversion treats the conversion as a template — every decision saved together, so a repeat export is one choice rather than a fresh setup.

The built-in Web Optimized template is the sensible default for turning HEICs into shareable JPEGs: JPEG at 85% quality, longest edge 2048px, sRGB colour. Social Media is the same idea at 1080px with GPS stripped. There are six output formats in total — JPEG, PNG, TIFF, HEIC, AVIF and JPEG XL, the last two needing macOS 15 or later — six sizing modes, five colour spaces, and DPI from 1 to 1200.

Three details that matter more than the format list:

• Your originals are not touched. Conversion writes new files into a destination folder you choose, so there is nothing to undo on the source.
• Metadata handling is a deliberate choice, not a side effect. Six options, including Strip GPS Only — which removes location while keeping the copyright, camera and capture date intact. That is usually exactly what you want before publishing.
• Output names come from a pattern. {original}_web keeps the source name and labels the copy; {seq:4} adds numbering that keeps names unique.

Video files in a selection are skipped automatically, so a mixed folder does not need sorting first.

What conversion does to quality, size and metadata

Three questions come up every time, so here they are plainly.

Does converting HEIC to JPG lose quality? Yes, a little, and unavoidably. HEIC is already a lossy format, so you are re-encoding — a second generation of compression on top of the first. At JPEG 85% or above the difference is invisible in normal viewing. Below about 75% you will start to see it in skies and smooth gradients. This is why the guidance is 90%+ for images that matter and 75% or less only for thumbnails.

Why is the JPEG bigger than the HEIC? Because HEIC is a more efficient codec — roughly half the size for equivalent quality. A JPEG of the same picture at good quality will often be about twice the file size. That is the cost of compatibility, and it is the trade you are making on purpose.

Does it keep the EXIF and GPS? It depends entirely on what you chose. Conversion can preserve everything, strip everything, or strip location only. Decide it in the template rather than discovering it afterwards — and if the files are going somewhere public, Strip GPS Only is the setting to reach for.

Where Preview, sips, Shortcuts and the online converters stop

If you would rather try the built-in tools first, here is what each one covers.

Preview converts in batch: open the files, select every thumbnail in its sidebar, then File → Export Selected Images…, choose JPEG and set the quality. For a few dozen holiday photos it is the correct answer. At scale it runs out — no resizing beyond a quality slider, no say over metadata, no saved settings.

sips, built into macOS, converts in one line and a folder in a loop:

sips -s format jpeg photo.heic --out photo.jpg

If you are comfortable in Terminal it is the fastest free option — with no preview, no undo, and flags you look up each time: excellent for a job you do once, awkward as the thing you rely on every week.

Shortcuts has a Convert Image action, and a Quick Action built on it appears in Finder’s right-click menu: the best free option for a recurring job. It resizes, it can strip metadata, and it runs on a selection. It runs out at fine control — colour profiles, DPI, per-destination presets, watermarks — and a Shortcut that partly fails tends to fail quietly.

Online converters top the search results, and for one photo of nothing in particular they are harmless. But you are uploading original photographs, with their location data and timestamps, to a third party whose retention policy you have not read. For family photos, client work, or anything with a home address in the EXIF, that is a poor trade for saving a few minutes. Prefer anything that runs on your own machine.

For a large library, for output that must meet a specific requirement, or for a job where the metadata decision is made once and applied consistently, a template-driven tool is the answer — which is where Image Conversion earns its place.

Next: the Image Conversion reference covers every option, and Conversion Templates walks through building your own recipe. Converting a shoot for the web as well? Batch-converting RAW to web-ready JPEG covers the same ground from the RAW side.