HEIF

High Efficiency Image File Format

image/heif Released 2015 · by Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG)

HEIF (High Efficiency Image File Format) is a flexible container format for individual images and image sequences. Developed by MPEG, it supports various compression codecs (like HEVC, AVC, and JPEG), and provides advanced features such as alpha channels, depth maps, and rich metadata.

Photography Transparency Animation ✦ HDR Production Ready

Technical Specifications

MIME Type

image/heif

Extensions

.heif.hif

Container

HEIF / ISOBMFF (ISO/IEC 14496-12)

Compression

Lossy & Lossless

Algorithms

Codec Agnostic (HEVC, AVC, JPEG, AV1)

Color Depth

8-bit, 10-bit, 12-bit, 16-bit

Metadata

EXIF XMP ICC

Capabilities

Transparency

Animation

Progressive Loading

Alpha Channel

HDR Support

Official Specification

Aliases: image/heicimage/avic

Magic Bytes & HTTP Headers

File Signature (Magic Bytes)

XX XX XX XX 66 74 79 70 6D 69 66 31

ASCII: ....ftypmif1

HTTP Headers

Content-Type: image/heif

HTML Accept Attribute

accept="image/heif, .heif, .hif"

Browser Support Matrix

Browser	Status	Min Version
Chrome	Not Supported	—
Firefox	Not Supported	—
Safari	Not Supported	—
Edge	Not Supported	—
Internet Explorer	Not Supported	Legacy

Advantages & Limitations

Advantages

Highly flexible container that can store image bursts, animations, focal stacks, and stereo 3D images in one file
Natively supports depth maps and alpha channels, making it perfect for computational photography
When paired with modern codecs like HEVC or AV1, it provides massive storage savings over legacy formats like JPEG

Limitations

Codec agnosticism makes broad software decoding difficult, as the container might hold proprietary or unsupported codecs
Zero cross-platform web browser support, requiring conversion for online publishing
Often confused with the more specific 'image/heic' and 'image/avif' MIME types

Developer Code Snippets

import magic
print(magic.from_file('image.heif', mime=True)) # Outputs 'image/heif'

const FileType = require('file-type');
const type = await FileType.fromFile('image.heif');
console.log(type.mime); // image/heif

import "net/http"

// The standard net/http library struggles with HEIF. 
// Specialized ISOBMFF parsing is required to read the 'mif1' brand.

$mime = mime_content_type('image.heif');
echo $mime; // Standard servers often require an updated magic database to properly detect HEIF

File Detection Steps

How to programmatically detect a image/heif file by reading its raw bytes:

1 Check for ISOBMFF 'ftyp' box starting at byte offset 4
2 Verify general HEIF brand strings like 'mif1' or 'msf1' starting at byte offset 8

Software Support

A

Apple Photos

W

Windows Photos (with HEIF Extension)

A

Adobe Photoshop

ImageMagick

GIMP

Conversion Tools

Share & Embed

Markdown Badge

[![HEIF Format](https://freewebptojpg.com/mime/image/heif/badge.svg)](https://freewebptojpg.com/mime/image/heif)

Interactive iframe Widget

<iframe src="https://freewebptojpg.com/mime/image/heif/embed" width="100%" height="280" style="border:1px solid #cbd5e1;border-radius:8px;" title="HEIF Specs"></iframe>

JSON API

All data on this page is available as a free, open JSON API. Use it in your project, documentation, or tooling.

GET https://freewebptojpg.com/mime/image/heif.json Open JSON

Free to use

No auth required

CORS enabled

Use from any domain

Cached 24h

Cache-Control headers set

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between HEIF and HEIC?

HEIF is the overarching container format (based on ISOBMFF) that can encapsulate various types of image data. HEIC is a specific, highly popular implementation of HEIF where the images are strictly encoded using the HEVC (H.265) video codec.

What is the magic byte for HEIF?

HEIF files utilize the ISOBMFF container structure. They begin with a 4-byte box size, followed by the 'ftyp' box identifier, and typically a major brand like 'mif1' (for still images) or 'msf1' (for sequences). The hex representation for a standard still HEIF is XX XX XX XX 66 74 79 70 6D 69 66 31 (....ftypmif1).

Do web browsers support HEIF?

Native support for general HEIF files in web browsers is almost non-existent. While Apple's Safari supports HEIC (HEVC-encoded HEIF), other browsers like Chrome, Edge, and Firefox do not natively support HEIF containers due to the complex licensing of underlying codecs.