On Windows, files with the .heic or .heif extensions aren’t showing up.
To fix this and enable the Windows File Explorer and other applications like IrfanView to load .heic pictures or .heif videos, you need to download and install a WIC codec.
Microsoft has released separate HEIF/HEIC and HEVC codecs for images and videos:
- For images: Download HEIF Image Extensions from the Microsoft Store
- For videos: Download HEVC Video Extensions from the Microsoft Store
There is also a separate codec available through a shareware application: CopyTrans HEIC.
Additionally, you can try an open-source codec (read the warning below the link before installing): WIC HEIC on GitHub.
When I installed the open-source codec “wic_heic” and used it through the WIC system in IrfanView to batch convert many pictures, it used up all of my 32 gigabytes of RAM. This suggests there might be a memory leak (bug) in this open-source codec. So, I uninstalled it and used the Microsoft-supplied one instead. The test with the open-source codec was because the Microsoft one is super slow with large HEIC images, and if I need to skip through thousands of HEIC files to find a particular one, speed really matters.