What Is HEIF? The High Efficiency Image File Format Explained
HEIF is the image container standard behind HEIC, AVIF and camera .HIF files. Learn what it is, who created it, what it can store and where it's supported.
HEIF — the High Efficiency Image File Format — is the standard behind the photos on your iPhone, the AVIF images on modern websites and the .HIF files produced by many cameras. Here's what it actually is.
A container, not a codec
The most important thing to understand is that HEIF is a container format. It defines how images and their metadata are packaged in a file, but not how the pixels themselves are compressed. The compression is done by a separate codec:
| Codec inside HEIF | Common name | Typical extension |
|---|---|---|
| HEVC (H.265) | HEIC | .heic, .heif, .hif |
| AV1 | AVIF | .avif |
| AVC (H.264) | — | .avci |
| JPEG | — | .heif (rare) |
When people say “HEIF” they usually mean HEVC-compressed HEIF — the files an iPhone creates.
Who created HEIF?
HEIF was developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) and published as ISO/IEC 23008-12 in 2015. Nokia produced an early reference implementation. It builds on the ISO Base Media File Format, the same foundation used by MP4 video files.
What HEIF can store
Because it's based on a media container, HEIF is much more flexible than JPEG:
- Single images and image collections (for example bursts).
- Image sequences and animations.
- Derived images: grids of tiles that form one large picture, overlays, and rotation, mirroring or cropping applied at display time.
- Auxiliary images: alpha (transparency) channels and depth maps.
- Thumbnails for fast previews.
- Metadata: Exif and XMP.
- High bit depths for HDR.
Where HEIF is used
- Apple: iPhone and iPad capture HEIC by default since iOS 11; macOS supports it natively.
- Android: platform support for decoding HEIF since Android 9; several manufacturers can capture HEIF.
- Cameras: many recent Canon, Sony, Fujifilm and Nikon cameras offer 10-bit HEIF, often as .HIF.
- Web: AVIF (AV1 in HEIF) is supported by all major browsers. HEVC-based HEIC is displayed by Safari only.
Opening and converting HEIF files
- View any HEVC-based HEIF file with the HEIC viewer.
- Convert .heif, .heic and .hif files with the HEIF converter.
- For the difference between the names, read HEIC vs HEIF.
AVIF files also use the HEIF container but a different codec (AV1). HEIC converters, including ours, don't handle AVIF — modern browsers display AVIF natively.