Drop a HEIC. Any size.
safe · secure · no server · works offline · fast
…or just start typing at the cursor.
safe · secure · no server · works offline · fast
…or just start typing at the cursor.
HEIC is what an iPhone saves your photos as: an image coded with
HEVC (H.265) and wrapped in an
ISO-BMFF container — the same box grammar as MP4.
Most tools can only offer to convert it to JPG. OmniViewer opens it
directly. Drop the file and it reads the container the way the HEIF spec
does: the whole structure lives in one small meta box near the
front, describing the file as a set of items. The
ITEMS tab lists every one — the primary image, its
thumbnail, the EXIF block, a depth or alpha map, the tiles of a grid —
with its role, pixel dimensions and byte size. Nothing is uploaded and the
coded pixels in mdat are never read, so even a huge photo is
analysed in a handful of tiny reads.
Every photo a phone takes carries EXIF: the camera make and model, the lens, the exact timestamp, and often the GPS coordinates of where you were standing. In a HEIC that EXIF is a separate item stored alongside the image. OmniViewer shows a verdict the moment the file opens, and one click downloads a clean copy: the EXIF and any XMP item are overwritten with zeros in place, so every box offset stays valid and the coded image is copied through untouched and never re-encoded — the picture is pixel-identical. Curious how it works? Read inside a HEIC file: boxes, items and HEVC.
A HEIC doesn’t decode like a JPEG — its pixels are HEVC video
frames — but everything about the image sits in plain
properties. The STATS tab reads the
dimensions from the ispe property, the
HEVC profile, tier and level from the hvcC
config, the bit depth from pixi, the
rotation from irot, and the
tile-grid layout of a mosaic image — all without
decoding a single pixel.
The PREVIEW tab leans on your browser’s own HEIC
support: Safari and recent Chrome/Edge builds decode HEIC, Firefox and older
browsers do not (decoding HEVC without a licensed decoder is exactly why
HEIC is awkward on the web). When the browser can’t decode it,
OmniViewer says so plainly — and the ITEMS, METADATA, STATS and hex
tabs read the structure directly, so they work in every browser. Detection is
by the file’s ftyp brand (heic,
mif1…), never the extension. Powered by the same engine
as fastjsonviewer.com and
hugecsv.com; OmniViewer opens
every file format.
No. OmniViewer is a static page with no server-side processing: your HEIC is read directly by your browser and never leaves your computer. Even the metadata stripper works locally, assembling the clean copy from byte slices of your original file.
A HEVC-coded image wrapped in an ISO-BMFF container — the same length-prefixed "box" grammar as MP4. Where MP4 describes a timeline of tracks, HEIF (the format; HEIC is the HEVC-coded flavour) describes a set of items. One small meta box near the front lists every item — an hvc1 coded image, a thumbnail, an Exif block, a grid of tiles — plus where each item’s bytes live in the mdat and the properties (dimensions, HEVC config, rotation) attached to each.
Yes — that is the point. OmniViewer opens the HEIC directly: it reads the item structure, the EXIF, the HEVC profile and the dimensions, and previews the picture where your browser can decode HEIC. Nothing is converted or uploaded. If you specifically need a JPG, that is a separate export step this tool deliberately does not do — it inspects the original.
Almost every iPhone photo does. The EXIF — camera make and model, lens, timestamp, exposure, and frequently the GPS position where the photo was taken — is stored as a separate Exif item in the file, referenced from the image. OmniViewer decodes what it finds and shows a verdict the moment the file opens.
Open the ITEMS tab and click "Download clean copy" (or use the Remove buttons on the METADATA privacy card). The EXIF and any XMP item are overwritten with zero bytes in place: every box offset and item location stays exactly where it was, so the file stays valid and the coded image is copied through byte-for-byte. The GPS coordinates are physically gone and the picture is pixel-identical.
Because HEIC stores its pixels as HEVC (H.265) video frames, and only some browsers can decode that: Safari and recent Chrome/Edge builds can, Firefox and older browsers cannot. When your browser can’t decode it, OmniViewer says so — and the ITEMS, METADATA, STATS and hex tabs still read the file’s structure, dimensions and metadata, because those come from the container, not the coded pixels.
Effectively unlimited. The meta box that holds the whole item structure sits near the front of the file, before the coded pixels in mdat, so the item list, dimensions, EXIF and clean-copy stripper cost a handful of tiny reads at any size. The preview relies on your browser’s decoder; the items, stats, hex and raw views work regardless.
HEIF is the container format (ISO/IEC 23008-12); HEIC is HEIF with the images coded using HEVC (H.265), which is what Apple devices produce. AVIF is the same container with AV1-coded images. OmniViewer detects the family from the ftyp brand and opens .heic and .heif the same way.
