
Beyond the free allotment, Google charges $1.99 a month for 100GB storage, $2.99 for 200GB a month, and $9.99 a month for 2TB, with additional 10TB and 20TB storage options available. Under Google One plans, Google account holders are entitled to 15GB of free Google Drive cloud storage. Youll see apps like 'Luma: heic to jpg converter and viewer offline' that will let you open and view HEIC images on your Android. Heres how to do it the right way: Step 1: Open Google Play on your Android device and browse for 'HEIC viewer'. We'll have to wait and see which course the search giant takes. Just browse through Google Play Store or search for 'HEIC viewer' and youll see several of them. Alternatively, Google could allow the pictures to be uploaded as-is but start counting them toward Google Drive usage. Google Photos may start converting HEIC photos to the less-efficient High Quality JPEG format during upload, which would result in an additional reduction in quality. The wording of the statement doesn't exactly make it clear how, though. Over the weekend, a Google spokesperson told Android Police: "We are aware of this bug and are working to fix it."



However, the unintentional perk for Apple device owners looks to be on borrowed time. The quirk was uncovered by a Reddit user last week.
#Google play store heic converter for free#
The reason is that the HEIC photos are already smaller than Google's compressed JPEG format, so the Photos app doesn't convert them during upload, meaning the pictures are essentially stored on Google's servers for free in their original size. Google has said it will patch a "bug" in Google Photos that enables iPhone users to store pictures in the cloud in their original quality without counting toward their Google Drive storage limit.Ĭurrently, the Google Photos iOS app happily uploads photos in Apple's efficient HEIC format without requiring them to be converted from "Original Quality" to "High Quality JPEG."
