HEICAutoConverter J. Schell

HEIC Auto Converter

iPhones and iPads save photos in HEIC format, which many Windows apps and websites don't support. This tool sits in your system tray and automatically converts those photos to JPG as soon as they appear in your chosen folders — no extra steps needed.

Installation

WinGet

winget install JSchell.HEICAutoConverter

Download

Download HEICAutoConverter.exe from Releases and run it. No installation required.

• Windows 10 (1809+) or Windows 11
• ~200 MB disk space
• No .NET runtime needed (self-contained)

Build from Source

git clone https://github.com/jschell/HEIC-convert.git
cd HEIC-convert

# Build (requires .NET 8 SDK)
dotnet build

# Or publish as self-contained single file
dotnet publish -c Release -r win-x64 --self-contained true -p:PublishSingleFile=true

Usage

1. Launch the app — it appears in the system tray
2. Right-click the tray icon → Settings...
3. Add folders to watch, adjust quality/output preferences
4. Save — monitoring starts immediately

System Tray Menu

Action	Purpose
Status	Current monitoring status and conversion counts
Pause / Resume	Temporarily stop or restart conversion
Convert Existing Files	Scan watched folders for existing HEIC files
Settings...	Open settings (also: double-click the tray icon)
Exit	Close the application

Configuration

Settings are stored in %APPDATA%\HEICAutoConverter\settings.json.

Setting	Default	Description
Watch Folders	(none)	Directories to monitor for HEIC files
Output Strategy	Same Folder	Where to save converted JPGs
JPEG Quality	95	Output quality (1-100)
Original Files	Keep	Keep, delete, or archive originals
Include Subdirs	Yes	Monitor subdirectories recursively
Max Concurrent	2	Simultaneous conversions (1-8)
Skip Existing	Yes	Don't re-convert if JPG already exists
Start with Windows	No	Launch on system startup
Show Notifications	Yes	Balloon tips on conversion

How It Works

• Real-time monitoring — FileSystemWatcher detects new HEIC/HEIF files as they appear
• Queued conversion — thread-safe async queue with configurable concurrency (1-8)
• Magick.NET (ImageMagick) handles HEIC decoding and JPEG encoding
• EXIF preservation — auto-orients images based on embedded metadata
• Error recovery — retries locked files, cleans up partial output on failure

Logs are written to %APPDATA%\HEICAutoConverter\logs\ with daily rotation. Logs older than 30 days are automatically cleaned up.

Project Structure

HEIC-convert/
├── src/
│   ├── Core/              # Conversion engine, queue, file watcher, settings, logging
│   └── UI/                # System tray icon, settings window, notifications
├── tests/                 # Unit tests (xUnit)
├── docs/                  # Lessons learned, style guides
├── .github/workflows/     # CI and release automation
└── assets/icon.ico        # Application icon

License

MIT