Portrait type photos are corrupted (grey area appear) when transferring from iPhone to PC

In order to keep my Photos backed up as I go, (since I can no longer use the USB cord to my laptop to transfer the edited/ portrait iPhone photos - my preferred method of MANY years)

I am making albums on my phone - uploading album to Google Photos - then downloading that album to my laptop finally deleting the photos off my phone.

I am getting two back ups this way - google photos and then unzipping to my laptop

I do NOT use iCloud, as it is not a true back up.

THIS METHOD DOES preserve the edits to the photos and you only get the final 'E" copy of the photo uploaded to google and then down to laptop.

Google album only shows the desired copy of the photo. ( not multiple like you see using USB cord)

Almost a year later and this is still not fixed! Many photos that I didn't catch and deleted off my phone are ruined. Yes, the workaround is to transfer "Automatic" as JPG, but I thought we are transitioning to HEIC.

Any "edited" photo from the iPhone transferred to PC will have this issue. The file name starts with IMG-E***. Affects photos you applied some edit to on the iPhone, or portrait mode.

Hey all, this is the update from 27.11.2021. So, I'm still running iOS 14.8.1 on my iPhone11Pro. I have Windows 11 with the most recent version of iTuenes, as well as the HEIC and HEVC codecs from the Microsoft App Store. Greygate is still an Apple feature (tm) on the Portrait Mode photos.

I recently found out that other photos (non Portrait Mode) also get corrupted from Greygate.

Looking at the files, they have the same size on disk and only the bit depth changes from 32bit (good) to 24bit (corrupted).

Anyway, I've updated my workflow to the following.

Instead of selecting and saving on iCloud Drive the Portrait Mode photos, now I open the Photos app, goto Library, on the (...) menu I filter by "Edited" photos, and finally save them to iCloud Drive. Note that this catches many useless edited screenshots and all.

G'luck everyone. Maybe on iOS16 this is fixed ;-) who knows.

Hope this helps !

If windows does not support the file format you would need to get an extension or codec that can play that format maybe from Microsoft store. I have not tested the extension out, so check out the reviews they do have others as well just search the extension.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/heic-image-viewer-converter/9n8k5qxzsjnv#activetab=pivot:overviewtab

The Image Extension enables Windows 10 devices to read and write files that use the iphones unique format. You will still need to associate the extension with the photo viewer, or you can just download a photo app that supports the extension.

Apple doesn't supply your windows computer. Thats why it works when you import using "compatible" which says it all right there. The key word being "compatible" it slipped past me before too .... windows imports them, but cant read them properly because its not programmed for it most likely, which im surprised it opened/imported it at all .

more info

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/photos-app-video-editor-error-can-t-view-this-file-type-173ae0be-2b7d-d413-589e-84ccca0de02e

Upload to onedrive then re-download may also work with google drive and icloud apple gives 5GB of icloud storage log into icloud.com access photos then download what you want, or try and upload photos directly from the phone while logged into icloud.com on safari browser upload the photo to icloud drive then go to

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/upload-heif-and-hevc-photos-and-videos-to-onedrive-96d137f5-369b-4d99-9db8-523c736da425

change default photo app

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/change-default-programs-in-windows-10-e5d82cad-17d1-c53b-3505-f10a32e1894d

Apple did provide software that you can use for photos if its set up automatically sync check it from time to time sometimes it may lose the connection to apple servers or you may leave your computer off for long periods of time which since the computers off do data is being transmitted, so whatever you do what show on the computer until you connect back to the internet, so it can send the info to your computer from the server that had the info the phone had on it....see apple llooking out for yall and microsoft is the problem

Set up and use iCloud for Windows - Apple Support

The video goes over associating the file type with the apps, also changing the default apps

Use this settings:

iPhone / Settings / Photos: Transfer to Mac or PC: Automatic

APPLE ENGINEERS PLEASE OPEN A JIRA TO TRACK THIS

BUG - SOFTWARE ISSUE WHILE COPYING EDITED IMAGES IN KEEP ORIGINALS IN HEIC FORMAT TO WINDOWS

This is not a hardware issue.

Edited images in format IMG_Exxxx.HEIC are corrupted in 14.3 version on iPhone11

It's **** easy to repro. Just take a photo and edit it and use Keep Originals.

While copying to Windows you will see GREY AREA

If you upload same edited image to icloud in FILES there is no GREY AREA and even file size is different.

This is not a hardware, nor a uniquely iOS 14 issue. It has been happening to me with my old iPhone 8 from at least iOS13.6 version and it continues with every iOS update on an iPhone 12 Prom Max now (iOS 14.4). As others posted, it only happens to the edited pics and portraits (regardless of editing). None of the suggested workarounds made a difference and reaching to Apple support was as fruitless as ever (direct comments to Microsoft).

I'm on Windows 11 now, all the updates on my iPhone 12, have just bulk downloaded a load of images - still the same.

I've noticed though - I have my camera set to 'crop / zoom to widescreen' on all images. It seems to be these images that corrupt - the true originals transfer just fine, as here.

We were already pretty close.

But the settings of the photos must not be set to "keep the originals". The correct setting is "automatic". (As already before correctly stated from Lesterw you have to click on "most compatible" in the settings of the camera). Anyway, this combination of settings has solved my problem.

I guess that the setting "keep the original" limits the size of the file during the transfer process.

To read HEIC files on Windows 10 it needs the "HEIF Image Extensions" to be downloaded and installed from the Microsoft store. Just search for "HEIF Image Extensions" in the store. It is free.

I have installed it on my Windows 10 machines and they can read HEIC files just fine.

There is also "HEVC Video Extensions" for videos. It is not free however. Costs about a dollar (depending on your country/currency).

Once you install this, you can read the files. You will then see the grey bar though. It is not caused by some bug in the HEIF extension though. That is some issue in iOS itself which Apple have not deigned to fix (yet).

Hello, iOS 14.7.1 is out, the issue is still present (...).

Still to have to use an external file transfer tool to copy modified pictures ... GG Apple.

Hi Jo,

Sadly yet I haven't heard anything from them, they don't even call you back when they promise it; I'm still waiting for the conclusion of the ticket so I guess they're "still working on it". I'll give them a call tomorrow and I'll let you know.

On the other hand, you're absolutely right! I was taking a look at mi photo album from Dec 2019 and I have portraits as IMG_EXXXX.HEIC blur background and so on, no issues with those, unfortunately I didn't realize about this "bug" and I've imported so many HEIC portraits with the gray line at the bottom along OCT-NOV 2020 ... I'm so upset about it.

Correct, the only workaround we have for now is going back to JPEG but you'll not get the benefits of P3 gamut, 12-bit image, deep fusion and... Smart HDR (?) Oh boy, I'll love to hear something about this from someone at Apple who actually cares.

Best regards,

Walter

I also see this issue in LATEST IOS 14.0 also while transferring normal edited photos in KEEP ORIGINAL. There is a grey line at the bottom of every image which is EDITED.

For debug if same image is copied to icloud in FILES and then downloaded on PC, the EDITED image is fine.

This means APPLE is doing some logic since the EDITED image uploaded to FILES in ICLOUD and COPIED to PC doesn't have a same size also.

Ideally when we say KEEP ORIGINALS then EDITED PHOTOS COPIED to ICLOUD IN FILES and COPIED to PC MUST HAVE SAME SIZE and SAME CHECKSUM

This is a well documented issue that multiple users, including myself are experiencing. I have an iPhone 12 Pro and am using Windows 10. Both have the latest software updates. (iOS 14.4)

The issue is for all portrait photos, which are in the format "IMG_E###.HEIC".

iOS photo settings are set to "Keep Originals". If I set this to "Automatic", there are other issues and the large documents do not copy over. Also, keeping originals is the preferred option as this preserves all the background data and features.

I am shocked that Apple hasn't fixed this issue! I was here a month and a half ago trying to figure out what the issue was. I thought that time would heal all wounds, but clearly not with Apple.

Is this a form of soft racketeering to "encourage" aka force the Apple ecosystem on Windows users? Maybe people will assume this is a Windows problem and the only solution is to switch to a Mac? This must be some next generation antitrust. Sadly I think this is the logic and the reason this is such low priority. But if we make it clear this is an Apple bug, and not Windows, maybe they will prioritize a fix.

This is a problem even on high end Apple devices in 2021 - HP in 2006 didn't even set the bar this low lol

Please make sure you submit feedback to Apple directly as outlined in the second response to the question:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

Apple may not be aware of the wide impact of this issue and sending feedback may help amplify the impact of the issue and drive corrective action.