I’m trying to convert HEIC to JPG as easily as possible, preferably something that would come up on the right-click context menu
To share photos with people who don’t have the ability to view HEIC files
Device: Mac Running Big Sur
App: Something Else
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Nick
Where are these photos now? Are they in the Photos app? If so, then you don't need to do anything. When you drag and drop a file out of Photos, or share it in some way, it should convert the image to JPEG as you export.
Otherwise, if these are HEIC files you have, then you can open them in any image editing app and export as JPG. You can do it in Preview too. I suppose you can create an Automator app to do it too, but that would only be worth it if you have to do this many times a day, day after day.
Photos are in Finder (Download folder), more often than not I Air Drop them from my iPhone. I tried a Folder Action with no luck so far. I know it's easy from within Photos, but I only put photos in there that I want to keep.
Nick: Maybe I would be able to suggest something if I knew more. Why do you have HEIC photos in your Download folder and why do you want to AirDrop them to someone without HEIC access? Where are you downloading these from? Can the other person simply go to the same place? I'm missing the big picture here so it is hard for me to help.
I think I can answer for Nick, as I run into this all the time too.
I take pictures on my iPhone, but need (as an example) to submit to an online site that accepts only jpegs. I use AirDrop to send it to my computer, which puts the HEIC file in my downloads folder. Now, I must open the file and as you've indicated export it as jpeg to have it ready to send on to intended place. That's doable, but it would be nice to have an easier way to convert the HEIC to jpeg.
Ray: Hopefully that problem will fade as websites catch up with the fact that HEIC is the future.