The fastest free way: select your HEIC files in Finder, right-click, choose Quick Actions > Create PDF. macOS writes a single PDF next to the originals, one photo per page. It’s built in, it takes about three seconds, and nothing gets uploaded anywhere.

That covers most of what people mean by this. But “convert HEIC to PDF” is really two different jobs, and picking the wrong method is why people end up with 40 separate files when they wanted one document.

First, which job is this?

One PDF from many photos. Scanned receipts, a set of documents you photographed with your phone, pages of a contract. You want a single file you can email. Quick Actions does this natively.

One PDF per photo. Each image as its own standalone document, usually because something downstream expects one file per record. Preview’s export and the sips command both do this.

Everything below is sorted by which of those two you’re after.

Method 1: Quick Actions (one PDF, and it’s already on your Mac)

Since macOS Monterey there’s a Create PDF option hiding in the right-click menu, and most people never find it.

  1. Select every HEIC file in Finder
  2. Right-click, choose Quick Actions, then Create PDF
  3. A PDF appears next to the originals, one photo per page

The pages come out in whatever order Finder is currently sorting by, not the order you clicked. Sort by name before you select, or fix it afterwards in Preview.

Where it breaks: no quality setting, no page size, no way to fit a tall photo onto A4 without it filling the whole page edge to edge. It’s fast and it’s free, and that’s the deal.

Method 2: Preview (when you need to reorder or drop pages)

Preview is the right tool when the order matters or you want to throw out a few shots before you commit.

  1. Select the HEIC files, right-click and Open With > Preview
  2. Show the thumbnail sidebar (View > Thumbnails)
  3. Drag the thumbnails into the order you want, delete the ones you don’t
  4. Select all of them in the sidebar
  5. File > Print, then click the PDF dropdown at the bottom left and choose Save as PDF

For a single photo as its own PDF, it’s shorter: File > Export, then pick PDF from the Format menu.

Where it breaks: Preview gets sluggish somewhere around a couple of hundred images, and it’s fiddly with a large selection. It also has the classic trap where File > Save overwrites the original. Use Export.

Method 3: the Print dialog (from anywhere)

Any Mac app that can print can write a PDF, which includes Photos. Select your images, hit Cmd+P, then use the PDF dropdown in the bottom left of the print sheet and choose Save as PDF.

This is the one to reach for when the photos live in the Photos app rather than in a folder, because you skip exporting them first.

You also get real page size control here, which Quick Actions doesn’t give you. Set the paper size in the print sheet and the photos get laid out on A4 or US Letter properly.

Method 4: the Terminal (one PDF per photo, scriptable)

sips is already installed on every Mac. For a single file:

sips -s format pdf photo.heic --out photo.pdf

For a whole folder:

for f in *.heic; do sips -s format pdf "$f" --out "${f%.heic}.pdf"; done

That gives you one single-page PDF per photo. sips has no merge, so if you want one document out the other end, use Quick Actions instead.

Worth knowing: the output is often smaller than the input. A 26MB HEIC from the macOS wallpaper set came out as an 8.8MB PDF in testing. That surprises people who expect PDFs to bloat.

Where it breaks: no quality flag that works reliably for PDF output, no page sizing, and it processes one file at a time so a big folder takes a while.

Method 5: Picmal (both jobs, with the knobs)

I built Picmal because the free tools each do one half of this and neither does it with any control. It handles both jobs, and which one you get depends on which tool you open.

Images to PDF builds one multi-page document from a whole selection. Drag the pages into order in the list, pick a page size (fit to image, A4, US Letter, or a custom size in millimetres), set the quality anywhere from 40 to 100%, and add an open password if the thing is going in an email. Photos get uprighted from their EXIF orientation, so nothing lands sideways.

Convert goes the other way: drop in HEIC files, pick PDF as the output, and each one comes out as its own single-page PDF. Same as the sips loop, minus the Terminal.

Everything runs on your Mac. No upload, no account. $29 one-time.

If you’re doing this once, use Quick Actions. It’s free and it’s already there.

Side-by-side

MethodOne PDF or many?Page sizeQuality controlReorder pagesPrice
Quick ActionsOne documentNoNoNoFree
PreviewEitherVia PrintBasicYesFree
Print dialogOne documentYesBasicNoFree
Terminal (sips)One per photoNoNoN/AFree
PicmalEitherYes40-100%Yes$29

Troubleshooting

The pages are in the wrong order

Quick Actions uses Finder’s current sort order, not your click order. Sort the folder by name first. Photos straight off an iPhone usually sort correctly by name already, since the filenames are sequential.

The photos came out rotated

That’s the EXIF orientation flag being ignored. Open the PDF in Preview and rotate the pages, or rotate the originals before you convert.

The PDF is enormous

Check what you fed it. A modern iPhone shoots 12 megapixels and a set of 40 of those makes a large document no matter what wraps them. Resize the images first, or drop the quality setting if your tool has one.

My location data is gone

Expected. PDF doesn’t carry photo EXIF the way JPG does. Keep the HEIC originals, they’re small.

The short version

Right-click, Quick Actions, Create PDF. That’s the answer for most people, and it’s free.

Reach past it when you need the pages in a specific order (Preview), a real paper size (the Print dialog), one file per photo (sips), or a password and a quality setting (Picmal).