HEIC and AVIF explained
HEIC is the container Apple uses for photos taken on iPhone since iOS 11, holding images compressed with HEVC. It stores roughly the same visual quality as JPEG in about half the space, and can hold extras such as depth maps and Live Photo frames.
AVIF stores still images using the AV1 video codec's intra-frame compression. It generally achieves the smallest files of any widely supported format, and it handles wide colour gamut and HDR, which JPEG cannot.
- Where HEIC files come from
- Every iPhone photo taken since 2017, unless the camera format was changed to “Most Compatible”.
- Where AVIF is used
- Performance-focused websites and modern image pipelines.