How to Convert HEIC to AVIF

Step-by-step instructions

1. 1

   Use FormatDrop (browser, any OS)

   Drag your HEIC file onto FormatDrop and select AVIF as the output. FormatDrop handles the Apple-proprietary HEIC decode step using its server-side pipeline and re-encodes to AVIF using libaom or libheif. Download the result. No software installation required — works directly in Chrome, Firefox, or Safari.

   Go to converter
2. 2

   ImageMagick on Mac/Linux

   Install ImageMagick with HEIC and AVIF support: `brew install imagemagick` (Mac) or `sudo apt install imagemagick libheif-dev` (Ubuntu). Convert with: `magick input.heic output.avif`. For a quality setting: `magick input.heic -quality 60 output.avif` (AVIF quality 60 is roughly equivalent to JPEG quality 80 — AVIF's scale is not linear). Batch convert: `for f in *.heic; do magick "$f" "${f%.heic}.avif"; done`.

3. 3

   FFmpeg (if installed with libheif and libaom)

   FFmpeg can decode HEIC if compiled with libheif: `ffmpeg -i input.heic output.avif`. Check support with `ffmpeg -codecs | grep heif` and `ffmpeg -codecs | grep aom`. The libavif encoder in FFmpeg uses libaom, which is slower but produces excellent compression. For speed: add `-cpu-used 8` for draft quality or `-cpu-used 4` for balanced.

4. 4

   Python: pillow-heif + Pillow

   Install: `pip install pillow pillow-heif`. Script: `from pillow_heif import register_heif_opener; register_heif_opener(); from PIL import Image; img = Image.open('input.heic'); img.save('output.avif', quality=70)`. This leverages the libheif library under the hood. For batch processing, loop over glob results. Quality 70 in Pillow AVIF encoder is a good default — lower means smaller files.