HEVC to MP4 Converter
Turn H.265 footage from an iPhone set to High Efficiency, a GoPro or a drone into an H.264 MP4 that opens on a PC without codec packs, in older editing software and on TVs that never learned HEVC.
Video Converter
or drop MP4, MOV, MKV … files here ·
Max 95 MB per file· Up to 20 files· Deleted after 30 minutes
Files are processed on our servers and deleted after 30 minutes.
Lower is better quality and a bigger file. 18 looks identical to the source, 23 is the default, 28 and above shows visible softening.
Frames per second. Keep the source rate unless a platform asks for a specific one; 15–20 fps is plenty for GIFs.
Only used for PowerPoint files and single still images: how long each slide or picture stays on screen.
Auto uses AAC for MP4/MOV and Opus for WebM. Copy keeps the original sound untouched when the new format supports it.
192 kbps is transparent for music; 128 kbps is enough for speech.
Width of the animation in pixels; height follows the aspect ratio. 480 px suits chats, 720 px or more gives a high-quality GIF but a much larger file.
GIF holds at most 256 colors. Fewer colors make a smaller file but cause banding on gradients and skin tones.
Mixes palette colors in a fine pattern to hide banding. Sierra gives the smoothest result; none gives the smallest file.
Whether the animation repeats endlessly or plays one time and stops.
Optional. Seconds (e.g. 75) or minutes:seconds (1:15). Leave empty to start at the beginning.
Optional. Same format as the start time. Leave empty to keep everything up to the end.
The converted file will be at or just under this size.
How to use this tool
- 1
Upload the HEVC clips
Drop .mov, .mp4, .mkv or raw .hevc / .h265 files onto the upload area. Up to 20 clips per batch, 95 MB each.
- 2
Leave the codec on H.264
The page starts with Video codec set to H.264 and Audio codec set to AAC. Lower Quality (CRF) toward 18 if the footage is going into an edit and you want headroom.
- 3
Convert and download
Press Convert to MP4. Download each clip on its own or all of them together as a ZIP.
Can I convert HEVC to MP4 without installing anything?
Yes. Upload the clip and press Convert to MP4: the video is re-encoded from H.265 to H.264 and the audio to AAC, the pair that plays on every Windows PC, Android phone, TV and browser. Expect the MP4 to be larger than the HEVC original.
Where HEVC files come from: iPhones, GoPros and drones
HEVC, also called H.265, was approved by ITU-T in April 2013 as the successor to H.264. It needs roughly half the bitrate for the same picture, which is why camera makers adopted it the moment their chips could encode it in real time.
Apple switched the iPhone camera to HEVC with iOS 11 in 2017 on the iPhone 7 and later; the setting lives under Settings → Camera → Formats, where High Efficiency means HEVC and Most Compatible means H.264. GoPro introduced HEVC with the HERO6 Black, and several of its high frame rate and 4K modes only record in it. DJI drones and many Android phones offer an H.265 switch too.
The result is a file that plays perfectly on the device that made it and then stalls everywhere else: a black frame in Windows Media Player, an audio-only clip in an older editor, or a portal that says the codec is not supported.
HEVC video not playing on Windows or in an editor
| from ↓ · to → | iPhone, iOS 11+ | Mac, macOS 10.13+ | Windows without HEVC extension | Android 5.0+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HEVC (H.265) | HEVC (H.265) to iPhone, iOS 11+: yes | HEVC (H.265) to Mac, macOS 10.13+: yes | – HEVC (H.265) to Windows without HEVC extension: no | HEVC (H.265) to Android 5.0+: yes |
| H.264 MP4 | H.264 MP4 to iPhone, iOS 11+: yes | H.264 MP4 to Mac, macOS 10.13+: yes | H.264 MP4 to Windows without HEVC extension: yes | H.264 MP4 to Android 5.0+: yes |
HEVC
HEVC / H.265 video
HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding, also called H.265) is a video codec standardised by ITU-T and ISO/MPEG in 2013. It delivers roughly the same quality as H.264 at about half the bitrate, which makes it standard for 4K, HDR and iPhone video. A .hevc or .h265 file is a raw video stream without a container or audio. Patent licensing has slowed support, so some browsers, older PCs and editors cannot decode it.
- Compression
- Lossy
- Transparency
- –
- Animation
- –
- Introduced
- 2013 · ITU-T VCEG and ISO/IEC MPEG
MP4
MPEG-4 video
MP4 (MPEG-4 Part 14) is a multimedia container standardised by ISO/MPEG and based on Apple's QuickTime format. It usually holds H.264 or HEVC video with AAC audio, and can also carry subtitles, chapters and metadata. It is the most compatible video format in the world, playing on phones, browsers, TVs, game consoles and social platforms. The video inside is almost always lossy, so repeated re-encoding gradually reduces quality.
- Compression
- Lossy
- Transparency
- –
- Animation
- –
- Introduced
- 2001 · Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG)
HEVC halves the storage an iPhone or GoPro needs, but Windows needs a paid extension to play it and many editors, TVs and upload forms still expect H.264, so people re-encode to a plain H.264 MP4 before sharing.
Why the MP4 comes out larger than the HEVC file
What to expect from the size
- H.264 needs more bits than HEVC for the same detail, so the MP4 is usually bigger.
- A higher Quality (CRF) number shrinks the file; 23 is the default, 28 starts to soften.
- Dropping Resolution from 2160p to 1080p cuts the size far more than any CRF change.
- The audio is a small share of the file; 192 kbps AAC adds little.
This is the one direction where converting makes a file grow; it is the price of compatibility. If the destination has a size cap, combine the conversion with a lower resolution or a higher CRF under Advanced settings, or shrink the finished file with compress video in a second pass.
For editing, the opposite advice applies: keep the resolution, set CRF to 18 and accept the extra megabytes. H.264 decodes with far less processor effort than HEVC, so timelines scrub more smoothly on laptops without a hardware HEVC decoder. If your iPhone clips arrive as .mov files, the MOV to MP4 guide covers the container side of the same problem.
HEVC to MP4 questions
How do I know whether a clip is HEVC or H.264?
The file extension will not tell you, because both codecs live inside .mov and .mp4. On a Mac, select the file and open Get Info; under More Info the codecs line reads HEVC or H.264. On Windows, MediaInfo or VLC's Codec Information window shows the same thing.
Should I just buy the HEVC Video Extensions instead?
If the only problem is playback on your own Windows 10 or 11 PC, the extension from the Microsoft Store (US$0.99) fixes it without touching the file. It does not help when you send the clip to someone else, upload it to a portal or import it into software that ships its own decoder without HEVC.
Does re-encoding HEVC to H.264 lose quality?
Every re-encode is lossy, but at the default CRF 23 the difference is hard to see on a phone or laptop screen. For footage you will grade or cut again, set Quality (CRF) to 18; the file grows, and the picture stays visually identical to the source.
Can I keep HEVC and only change the container to MP4?
Yes: set Video codec to H.265 / HEVC under Advanced settings. That keeps the small file size and puts it in an MP4 wrapper, which helps with sites that reject .mov but still requires an HEVC-capable player. For a guaranteed-to-play file, stay with H.264 or see HEVC to H.264.
My 4K GoPro clip is larger than 95 MB. What are my options?
The limit applies to the upload, so trimming with Start at and End at cannot help here. Split the recording on the camera or in the GoPro Quik app first, then convert the parts; the video converter page explains every setting you will see.
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