iPhone photos fail upload forms for two reasons that have nothing to do with the photo itself — both are format defaults, and both are fixable in a minute.
Problem 1: the file is HEIC, not JPEG
Since iOS 11, iPhones default to HEIC (High Efficiency Image Container) — a genuinely better format for storage, but one many upload forms, government portals and older systems don't accept, and many Windows machines can't open without extra codecs.
Fixes:
- One photo now: share/email the photo to yourself, or use the Files app → the shared copy is typically converted to JPEG automatically.
- Permanently: Settings → Camera → Formats → Most Compatible (the camera then captures JPEG).
- When emailing/AirDropping to a computer, choosing “Automatic” transfer settings converts to compatible formats.
Problem 2: the color space is Display P3, not sRGB
iPhones capture in Display P3, a wider color gamut than the web-standard sRGB. Most portals don't care — but specs that explicitly require sRGB (the U.S. visa digital photo spec does) can fail a P3 file even though it looks identical on screen. Re-encoding the image through a standard browser canvas — which is how our Image Requirement Fixer processes photos — outputs standard sRGB.
Bonus problem: size
A 48-megapixel iPhone photo can be 5–10 MB — far beyond the caps of many document portals (and the 240 kB visa photo cap). The same one-pass fix applies: exact dimensions plus a size target, verified against the numbers before you download.
If the tool reports it can't open your HEIC file (browser support varies), convert to JPEG on the phone using either method above, then run the fix.