IntactFile

Repair corrupted HEIC photos — they never leave your device

The symptom tells you the prognosis. Match your iPhone photo to one of the three cases below and you'll know what's recoverable — and what was never broken in the first place — before you spend anything.

Your file never leaves your device — repair runs in your browser. 0 bytes uploaded.

Your data is the big block — usually intact. What breaks is the small index. Repair rebuilds it.

Drop a file here or browseTap to choose a file

ZIP · Office · PDF · video · JPG · PNG · RAR/7z · SQLite — repaired right here in your browser. Nothing is uploaded

0 bytes uploadedFree: 3 repairs/day — up to 500 MB video, 100 MB docs & archives, 50 MB photos. Free download. Single repair €5.90. No account required.

Short answer: drop a HEIC here and the tool sorts it into one of three cases — won't-open (a damaged container or offset table around an intact photo), missing-tiles (the file was truncated, so part of the grid is gone), or opens-elsewhere (not corrupt at all — your viewer just lacks the HEVC decoder). It runs in your browser: the photo is never uploaded, 0 bytes leave your device, and you can confirm that in the browser's Network tab. It repairs the container structure in your browser now — stripping a garbage prefix, re-anchoring the iloc offsets, resyncing box sizes, salvaging the surviving tiles and the Exif on truncation. The honest limits: it repairs the container, not the coded photo itself, so a missing tile can't be brought back and turning HEVC into a viewable photo needs a decoder that browsers don't reliably have — the diagnosis is free either way.

HEIC won't open, or shows gray patches? Start here

  1. Drop the photo
  2. Local read — which of the three cases it is
  3. Honest prognosis, before anything else

Fixing a HEIC starts with knowing whether it's actually damaged, and if so where. HEIC is built on the same box container as MP4: a run of structural boxes (dimensions, an item-location table) followed by the HEVC-coded picture. Damage to the boxes leaves the picture intact but unreachable — that's the repairable class. Where the product stands, plainly: the structural HEIC engine repairs the container in your browser now — it strips a garbage prefix, resyncs box sizes and re-anchors the item-location table, and recovers the surviving tiles, the embedded thumbnail and Exif — not a guaranteed full-resolution render, because that needs an HEVC decoder browsers don't reliably ship. It runs the same way as everything we make: in your browser, no upload.

What broken HEICs look like — three cases

These blocks are illustrations, not screenshots, but if you've got a problem photo open right now, you'll recognize yours:

Won't open at all. No preview, viewers refuse it. Usually a damaged container box or an item-location table pointing the wrong way — the coded picture behind it survived.Best structural repair odds of the three.
Gray patches or missing blocks. The file was truncated mid-transfer, so part of the tile grid is gone. Surviving tiles and the embedded thumbnail are salvageable; the missing tiles are data that no longer exists. Partial recovery only, honestly.
Opens on iPhone, "unsupported" on PC. Nothing is wrong with the file — the viewer just can't decode HEVC.Not a repair problem: install HEVC support or convert on a device that already opens it.

Why the cases differ: a HEIC is a short run of structuralboxes (dimensions, the meta box, aniloc table of byte offsets) followed by the picture, which Apple often stores as a grid of tiles plus a small embedded thumbnail. Box or offset damage leaves the tiles intact but unreachable (case 1): repair the structure and they return. Losing part of the file removes whole tiles (case 2): a hard boundary, because there's nothing left to decode there. And case 3 isn't corruption at all — it's the HEVC decoder missing on the machine that's complaining.

The messages this covers

This file format is not supported.

Windows Photos — usually misleading: HEIC is supported once HEVC is installed, so a healthy photo triggers this too. If it also fails on the iPhone that took it, then it's genuinely damaged.

The file "IMG_2041.HEIC" could not be opened. It may be damaged or use a file format that Preview doesn't recognize.

macOS Preview — the container is damaged enough that Preview can't parse it.

Unable to import this photo.

A HEIC left truncated by an interrupted AirDrop, USB import, or iCloud sync — the classic missing-tiles case.

Where broken HEICs come from

Two sources dominate. Transfer trouble: an AirDrop or USB import that stopped partway, an iCloud sync interrupted mid-write, a failing phone or card — the file ends up truncated, losing tiles off the end. Data-recovery output: photos carved back after deletion, where the recovery tool guessed the file boundaries and returned a garbage prefix or the wrong length. Recovery finds bytes; repair makes them a picture again. If your HEICs came out of a recovery tool, diagnose them here before assuming they're lost.

What this can and can't fix

Repairable

  • A garbage prefix before the file, or wrong box sizes — stripped and resynced so the container parses again
  • An item-location (iloc) table pointing at the wrong offsets — re-anchored to the real image data
  • Truncated files — the surviving tiles, the embedded thumbnail, and the Exif are salvaged and reported honestly (e.g. "42 of 48 tiles intact")

Not repairable

  • A missing tile in the grid — that region is data that doesn't exist in the file, and no tool invents it; no AI fill
  • A guaranteed full-resolution render in every browser — HEVC decoding isn't reliably available client-side, so this behaves like structural recovery, not "here's your photo"
  • Files that read 0 bytes or contain another file's fragments — a recovery problem, not a repair problem

The current honest boundary: this page tells you which of the three cases your HEIC is and, when the container is the problem, repairs it — re-anchoring offsets, resyncing boxes, salvaging the surviving tiles — right in your browser, like everything else we make. It repairs the container, not the coded photo, so it won't re-render a full-resolution HEIC. The diagnosis is free either way — you'll know the prognosis before anyone asks you for a cent.

FAQ

How do I fix a corrupted HEIC file?

Start by telling apart the two very different things people call "corrupt." A HEIC that won't open often has a damaged container — the box structure or the offset table that points at the picture — while the coded photo behind it survived: that's the structural class, the one worth repairing. A HEIC that opens on your iPhone but shows "unsupported" on a PC usually isn't damaged at all; the viewer just can't decode HEVC. Drop the file above: the tool reads it locally and, when the container is the problem, repairs it right in your browser now — stripping garbage prefixes, re-anchoring shifted iloc offsets, resyncing box sizes, and, on a truncated file, salvaging the surviving tiles, the embedded thumbnail and the Exif. It repairs the container, not the HEVC photo itself, so a full-resolution HEIC still needs every tile and an HEVC-capable viewer; a missing tile can't be invented. Nothing is uploaded.

Why does Windows say my HEIC is unsupported?

Most of the time the file is fine. HEIC wraps an HEVC-coded image, and HEVC decoding isn't installed by default on Windows — so Photos refuses a perfectly healthy photo. That's a codec problem, not corruption: the same file opens on the iPhone that took it. Repair can't help there because there's nothing to repair. If the file also fails on the device that made it, then it's genuinely damaged, and that's the case the structural engine is built for.

My HEIC shows gray blocks or missing patches — can that be recovered?

Partly, honestly. Apple stores a HEIC photo as a grid of tiles, and truncation or a bad transfer can lose some of those tiles. The tiles that survived are real and salvageable; a missing tile is a hole — data that isn't in the file — and no tool can invent it. There's often an embedded thumbnail and the Exif that survive too. So the honest outcome is "these tiles and the thumbnail recovered," not a guaranteed full-resolution photo.

Can I just convert HEIC to JPG to fix it?

Only if it already opens. Converting to JPG requires decoding the HEVC image first — so if the photo won't decode, the converter fails for the same reason your viewer does. Conversion isn't repair. When the container is damaged, the structural fix (re-anchoring the offset table, resyncing box sizes, stripping a garbage prefix) has to come first; once the picture data is reachable again, converting it is trivial.

Are photos recovered from an iPhone or SD card repairable?

Often — recovery output is one of the biggest sources of broken HEICs. Carving tools guess where a file starts and ends, so recovered photos frequently come back with a garbage prefix, wrong length, or a truncated tail. A recovered HEIC with a plausible size is a repair candidate; one that reads 0 bytes or a suspiciously round size is a failed recovery no repair can rescue.

Does repairing a HEIC upload my photo anywhere?

No. Like every IntactFile engine, HEIC repair is designed to run entirely in your browser — 0 bytes leave your device, and you can confirm that yourself in the browser's Network tab. Nothing is sent to a server, so the private photos people most want to fix stay on the machine that holds them.

Related: JPG photo won't open — repair JPG · broken web image — repair AVIF ·verify the zero-upload claim