HEIF

File Format
Name	HEIF
Ontology	Electronic File Formats Graphics HEIF
Extension(s)	.heic, .heif
PRONOM	fmt/1101
Wikidata ID	Q24907733
Released	2017

HEIF (High Efficiency Image File Format) is the lossy image and animation format defined by MPEG-H Part 12 (ISO/IEC 23008-12).

It is closely related to the HEVC video format, so in that way it is similar to BPG. It uses boxes/atoms format as a container format, so in that way it is similar to JPEG 2000.

Format details

[This section contains educated guesses, and may be incorrect.]

The standard apparently defines:

• A still image ("image collection") container format, based on boxes/atoms format, with brand mif1. It uses some elements from ISO-BMFF (though note that still image formats cannot be technically valid ISO-BMFF).
• An animated image ("image sequence") container format, with brand msf1. This might qualify as valid ISO-BMFF.
• An image compression scheme, with brand heic.
• Various other compression schemes for use in the above containers, for example based on AVC or JPEG.

Some or all files that use heic compression should use file extension .heic. Other files may use .heif, or something else.

Identifiers

Based on source code and sample files, it usually uses the brands mif1 and heic. Some files may use other brands, such as msf1 and heix.

See also

• AVIF
• HEVC
• MIAF

Software

• Nokia Technologies HEIF Reader/Writer Engine
• libheif

Sample files

• Some of the links in this forum post might still work
• iPhone XR sample images

Links

• Wikipedia: High Efficiency Image File Format
• HEIF information from the MPEG website
• HEIF information from Nokia Technologies
• ISO/IEC 23008-12 (not free to download)
• How Apple is squeezing more photos into your iPhone

See also MPEG-H#Links.