Convert iPhone HEIC Photos to JPG Before Sending Them to a Contractor for a Quote

When a contractor asks you to "send photos of the job," they usually mean it casually — a text message, an email, a messaging app. What they do not mean is a format puzzle. But iPhone owners hit one constantly: the photos arrive as HEIC, the contractor's phone or quoting software cannot open them, and the quote stalls while everyone troubleshoots a file format instead of talking about the job.

HEIC is Apple's default iPhone photo format. It is smaller and higher quality than JPG, which is great for your camera roll. But plenty of Android phones, older quoting tools, and email clients still cannot preview it. The contractor sees a broken attachment or a download that will not open, and you look like the difficult customer before the job has even started.

Here is the order that keeps the quote moving.

1. Keep the HEIC originals
   Do not delete or overwrite the originals. Convert copies for the contractor and keep the masters — if the job changes scope later, you may need the full-quality originals again.

2. Do not just rename the file
   Changing photo.heic to photo.jpg changes the name, not the contents. The contractor's phone will still see HEIC data, and the failure becomes harder to explain over text.

3. Convert copies to JPG before sending
   If you need JPGs quickly, you can convert HEIC to JPG for contractor quotes entirely in your browser: the conversion happens on your own device, nothing is uploaded to a server, and no account is needed. Convert the photos that actually show the job, then open each JPG yourself before you send it.

4. Send a useful set, not a camera roll dump
   One wide shot for context, then close-ups of the actual problem areas — the leak, the crack, the worn surface, the measurements if you have them. A contractor quotes faster and more accurately from five clear photos than from forty unsorted ones, and JPGs make those photos readable on any device they use.

Disclosure: I'm the developer of FileOnTap. The "keep the original, convert a copy, check it opens" order is the real takeaway whichever tool you use.