Inspect the inside of a HEIC file
This is a technical view of what a HEIC file contains: brands, codec, primary image, grids and tiles, thumbnails, depth, alpha, gain maps, colour profiles and every item.
Drop HEIC photos here, or pick them from your device
Stays on your device. Nothing is uploaded.
Processing on this device
How to use it
- Drop a HEIC file onto the page.
- Check the summary: brands, codec and which item is the primary image.
- Look at grids and tiles, thumbnails, depth maps, alpha and gain maps if present.
- Open the item table for the full list.
What it keeps
- The file is read only.
- Nothing is uploaded.
What it removes or changes
- Nothing changes. This is a report.
Limits
- Sequence tracks, such as motion HEIF, are reported but not decoded.
- It describes structure. It does not tell you whether pixel data is intact. The health check decodes for that.
- For the raw box tree with offsets, use the HEIF structure viewer.
Compatibility
Useful when software disagrees about a file, such as one app showing a small image, another showing a grid, or when you wonder whether a photo has depth or HDR data. Findings apply to HEIC and the broader HEIF family.
Privacy
The file is parsed locally in your browser tab. It is not uploaded or stored.
Inspector, structure viewer or metadata viewer?
The inspector answers "what is in this file": images, grids, auxiliary data and profiles. The structure viewer shows the raw box tree with offsets and sizes, which suits debugging. The metadata viewer is about EXIF, XMP and dates. Use the inspector as the middle layer between those two.
Troubleshooting
My photo is made of many tiles.
Large HEIC images are stored as a grid of tiles. That is normal and decoders stitch them together.
It lists several images in one file.
HEIC can hold thumbnails, depth maps, gain maps and alpha. Use the extract tool to save them separately.
The codec is not HEVC.
Some HEIF files use other codecs. The health check reports unsupported codecs.
Frequently asked questions
What is a primary item?
The main image that apps display. Other items such as thumbnails and depth maps are secondary.
Does it decode sequences?
No. Sequence tracks, such as motion HEIF, are reported in the item list but are not decoded or extracted.
Can it extract the depth map?
Use Extract images from HEIC for that.