{"id":51462,"date":"2026-06-24T14:13:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T14:13:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/?p=51462"},"modified":"2026-06-24T14:13:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T14:13:16","slug":"enable-heif-heic-photo-image-support-in-ubuntu-26-04","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/2026\/06\/enable-heif-heic-photo-image-support-in-ubuntu-26-04\/","title":{"rendered":"Enable HEIF\/HEIC Photo Image Support in Ubuntu 26.04"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Found the image viewers and editors, such as Loupe and GIMP, cannot load HEIF\/HEIC images by default in Ubuntu 26.04? Here’s a quick guide show you why and how to fix.<\/p>\n

Today I found that the default Loupe image viewer in Ubuntu 26.04 could not load my photo images imported from iPhone.<\/p>\n

It said “Either the image file is corrupted or it contains unsupported elements<\/i>“, and the more information page showed the error below:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

emote error: org.gnome.glycin.Error.LoadingError: glycin-loaders\/glycin-heif\/src\/main.rs:103:24: DecoderPluginError(Unspecified) Decoder plugin generated an error: Unspecified<\/i><\/p>\n

stderr:
\nSetting process memory limit<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Why HEIF\/HEIC does not load in Ubuntu 26.04?<\/h3>\n

Someone has reported the issue<\/a> to glycin project, the GNOME backend library for loading images. It has nothing to do with that library, but caused by missing of the libheif plugin.<\/p>\n

According to the glycin source page<\/a>, it uses the external libheif<\/code> library for decoding AVIF and HEIF images. And, libheif<\/a> has the HEIF\/HEIC decoding support through either libde265<\/code> or ffmpegdec<\/code> plugin.<\/p>\n

\"\"

HEIC\/HEIF support is handled by libheif’s libde265 or ffmpegdec plugin<\/p><\/div>\n

By running the command below in terminal, you’ll find that the glycin library in Ubuntu 26.04 was however built with libheif1<\/code> and only a few of its encoder plugins as dependencies.<\/p>\n

apt-cache depends glycin-loaders<\/pre>\n
\"\"<\/p>\n
And, libheif1<\/code> package only depends on aomdec<\/code> and dav1d<\/code> plugins, recommends aomenc<\/code> plugins, while all other plugins are marked as “Suggests” packages that are NOT required to be installed during the installation of libheif1<\/code>.<\/p>\n
apt-cache depends libheif1<\/pre>\n
\"\"<\/p>\n
In short, the core image loading library supports HEIF\/HEIC decoding, but through the libheif<\/code> library. The libheif<\/code> in Ubuntu 26.04 has the HEIC decoder built as separated plugin, but NOT installed out-of-the-box.<\/b><\/p>\n
Enable HEIF\/HEIC Support<\/h3>\n
So, the solution is simply install the missing plugin, either libde265<\/code> or ffmpegdec<\/code>, for the libheif library.<\/p>\n
To do so, press Ctrl+Alt+T<\/code> on keyboard to open terminal window, and run the command below to install the package:<\/p>\n
sudo apt install libheif-plugin-ffmpegdec<\/pre>\n
Refresh cache with sudo apt update<\/code> if required. And, here you may replace libheif-plugin-ffmpegdec<\/code> with libheif-plugin-libde265<\/code> plugin for same purpose.<\/p>\n
Also, install the libheif-plugins-all<\/code> package for all libheif<\/code> plugins, if you have apps that reply on the library for encoding HEIC or encoding\/decoding VVC, AVC, HTJ2K and other supported file formats.<\/p>\n
\"\"<\/p>\n
Reload Thumbnails<\/h3>\n
If you found the image thumbnails do not work for HEIF\/HEIC in file manager, then try running the command below to clear cache:<\/p>\n
rm -rf ~\/.cache\/thumbnails<\/pre>\n
Finally quite Nautilus (the file manager) via command nautilus -q<\/code> which worked in my case.<\/p>\n
\"\"
HEIC image and thumbnails load afterwards<\/p><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Found the image viewers and editors, such as Loupe and GIMP, cannot load HEIF\/HEIC images by default in Ubuntu 26.04? Here’s a quick guide show you why and how to fix. Today I found that the default Loupe image viewer in Ubuntu 26.04 could not load my photo images imported from iPhone. It said “Either […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45727,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1154],"class_list":["post-51462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-howtos","tag-multimedia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}