---
title: QT/KDE Application HEIF/HEIC image format support
#descriptions: empty description
#summary: empty summary
#weight: 2
categories:
- Photography
tags:
- HEIF/HEIC
- Photos
---

# Add HEIF/HEIC support to Kubuntu 22.04

Besides my DSLR I also use an iPhone 24 Pro for photography. The native image format of the iPhones is HEIF/HEIC. However, Kubuntu 22.04 LTS does not support HEIF/HEIC image format out-of-the-box.

## QT/KDE applications

There exists a good plugin that must be installed from source code to enable format support for all Qt/KDE applications [qt-heic-image-plugin](https://github.com/novomesk/qt-heic-image-plugin). Besides what is noted in the tools [README.md](https://github.com/novomesk/qt-heic-image-plugin/blob/main/README.md), you must also install the relevant dependencies:
```shell
$ apt install \
    build-essential \
    cmake extra-cmake-modules \
    libheif1 libheif-dev
```
And then proceed with the tool documentation.

## GTK Applications

To also enable support for GTK based applications also install:
```shell
$ apt install heif-gdk-pixbuf heif-thumbnailer
```
