Settings → Camera → Formats is one of the more confusing screens on an iPhone, and the wrong choice there can quietly consume tens of gigabytes.
Here is what each option actually does, and what we would pick.
High Efficiency vs Most Compatible
This is the top choice, and it affects every photo you take.
| High Efficiency (HEIF) | Most Compatible (JPEG) | |
|---|---|---|
| Picture quality | Same | Same |
| File size | About half | Roughly double |
| Opens everywhere | Modern devices and software | Everything, including very old software |
Pick High Efficiency. It is the same photograph in about half the space. On a phone with thousands of photos that is a meaningful difference, and there is no quality penalty.
The one reason to choose Most Compatible: you regularly move photos to an older Windows PC, or use software that refuses to open HEIF files.
Worth knowing before you switch: iPhones already convert automatically when you share. Email a photo, send it on WhatsApp, upload it to most websites, and it goes as a JPEG regardless. The compatibility problem is much smaller than people assume — it mostly appears when plugging the phone into an old computer and copying files directly.
24MP or 48MP?
On iPhones with a 48MP main camera, the default is 24MP — and a lot of people assume they are being short-changed.
They are not. The 24MP default is not half a 48MP photo. It combines information from the full sensor into a file with excellent detail and better low-light behaviour, at a sensible size. For screens, sharing and normal printing it is the right answer.
Turn on the higher resolution when you have a reason:
- You intend to crop heavily and still want detail
- You are printing large
- You are photographing something detailed you may want to re-frame later — architecture, landscapes, documents
To enable it: Settings → Camera → Formats → Resolution Control (or ProRAW & Resolution Control on Pro models). A control then appears in the Camera app itself, labelled HEIF Max or RAW Max, which you tap to switch on for a shot — a diagonal line through the label means it is off.
Being a per-shot toggle rather than a permanent setting is deliberate, because of what it does to your storage.
Apple ProRAW
ProRAW keeps the unprocessed sensor data alongside Apple’s computational processing. That gives you far more room to edit afterwards — recovering detail from shadows, changing white balance, pushing exposure — without the picture falling apart the way a heavily edited JPEG does.
Use it if you actually edit photos. If you shoot something important and then work on it in Photos, Lightroom or similar, ProRAW is a genuine advantage.
Skip it if you do not. Unedited, a ProRAW file looks flatter than the normal photo, not better. You would be storing enormous files for a benefit you are not using.
On size: a standard HEIF photo is a few megabytes. A full-resolution ProRAW file can be ten times that or more. A day out shooting in ProRAW can consume several gigabytes — which is why Apple makes it a per-shot toggle rather than a default.
What we would set
| Situation | Setting |
|---|---|
| Almost everyone | High Efficiency, default resolution |
| You edit photos seriously | High Efficiency + enable ProRAW, use it selectively |
| Old Windows PC in the workflow | Most Compatible |
| Storage always full | High Efficiency + Live Photos off |
The setting that costs more than any of these
Live Photos.
Every Live Photo stores a short video alongside the still, which roughly doubles the file size of every single shot you take. Most people never watch them.
Turn it off with the icon at the top of the Camera app — then go to Settings → Camera → Preserve Settings and turn on Live Photo, otherwise the camera helpfully switches it back on every time you open it.
That one change does more for your storage than any format decision on this page.
Video eats far more than photos
Worth saying plainly, because people fret over photo formats while video quietly fills the phone.
Settings → Camera → Record Video. Every step up in resolution and frame rate multiplies the size — 4K at 60fps is dramatically larger than 1080p at 30fps, for footage most people watch once on a phone screen.
4K at 30fps is a sensible default for most people. Use higher only when you know why.
Then deal with what is already on the phone
Format settings only affect photos you take from now on. If your phone is already full, that is a separate job — and the order matters:
- iPhone storage full? What to delete first
- WhatsApp is probably your biggest storage problem
- How to back up photos and videos without paying ₹1.5 lakh for storage
And if you are choosing a new iPhone and wondering how much storage to buy: almost nobody should pay Apple’s prices for storage they could keep in the cloud. The numbers are on our line-up page.
One last thing
None of these settings will make a disappointing photo good. Format affects file size and editing latitude — not how the picture looks straight out of the camera.
If your photos are not what you want, the settings and technique that actually change them will do far more. Starting, as always, with cleaning the lens.
