Part 2 of 7 · Install & add photos
Install & first launch
HEIC +Converter is distributed through the Microsoft Store: apps.microsoft.com/detail/9MV2PLMHDGSS. After installing, launch it from the Start menu — there is no separate runtime, codec or license step to sit through.
The very first time the app starts it opens this guide once in your default browser. That flag is stored in the app’s own settings, so it will not happen again. The same page is always one click away from the Need help? Read the guide link under the drop box.
System requirements
- Windows 10 or Windows 11, 64-bit. There is no 32-bit build.
- No additional codecs, runtimes or components — the HEIC decoder ships inside the app.
- No network connection is needed to convert; photos never leave your machine.
Adding photos
There are three ways in, and all of them feed the same list, so you can mix them freely.
Drag and drop
Select files in File Explorer and drop them on the dashed rectangle in the red band. Multi-selection works; a hundred files at once is fine.
Add Files
The first toolbar button opens a file picker filtered to HEIC and HEIF. Select one file or several with Ctrl‑click and confirm.
Add Folder
The second toolbar button imports every HEIC / HEIF photo inside the folder you pick. Subfolders are not scanned — add them one by one if your library is nested.
Only HEIC and HEIF are accepted. Adding a JPG, PNG or a folder path has no visible effect: the file is skipped silently, and the list stays as it was. That is also why dropping a folder onto the drop zone appears to do nothing.
Duplicates are filtered out. Each path can only sit in the list once, so dropping the same photo twice, or adding its folder after adding the file, never produces two rows. Photos with the same name in different folders are treated as two different files — because they are.
Opening a photo straight from File Explorer
When HEIC +Converter is your default app for .heic, double-clicking a photo in Explorer starts the app with that file already in the list — and opens it in the viewer at the same time. The list is not empty afterwards, so you can hit Convert immediately.
Reviewing the list
Nothing is converted until you press the button, so the list is the place to get things right.
Ticking rows
- Click a row’s checkbox to include or skip it. New files arrive ticked.
- The File name checkbox in the header ticks or unticks everything at once.
- Only ticked rows are converted. Anything unticked stays in the list untouched.
Selecting and opening
- Clicking anywhere on a row highlights it — a pale red band instead of the system blue. That selection is what Show EXIF reads.
- Double-click a row to open that photo in the viewer, exactly like clicking its view icon.
- Double-click the checkbox or the two icons and you get that control’s action instead: tick, view, remove.
Removing rows
- remove on a row asks for confirmation, then takes that row out of the list.
- Remove Selected in the toolbar does the same for every ticked row at once.
- Removing a row never deletes the file from disk. The list is a queue, not a file manager.
The list is locked while a conversion runs. Checkboxes, the toolbar, the output folder and the format list are all disabled until the last row finishes, and the Convert button reads Converting …42%. You can still open the viewer while it works.