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I upgraded from Kubuntu 20.10 to 21.04. According to the answer at Any app on Ubuntu to open and/or convert HEIF pictures (.HEIC, High Efficiency Image File Format)? support for HEIC/HEIF is a part of KDE Frameworks 5.80, which is included in Kubuntu 21.04. Similar information is seen from the KDE Frameworks 5.80.0 release annoucement.

Nevertheless, after upgrading to 21.04, I can neither get thumbnails of HEIC images in Dolphin, nor can I open them in either Gwenview or Kdenlive. The only support continues to be similar to that before the upgrade, namely in GIMP and DigiKam. Strangely enough, a folder of HEIF/HEIC images does have some sort of thumbnail in Dolphin. But not the individual images. Right clicking on one only offers GIMP as an option to open it with. When I nevertheless try opening in Gewnview, the error message reads, "Loading 'so-and-so.heic' failed. Gwenview cannot display documents of type image/heif." When trying to add one to a Kdenlive project, the message reads, "Cannot open file so-and-so.heic."

Suggestions, please? Why can I not open HEIC/HEIF images?

EDIT: I don't know if it makes a difference, but the arch page for kimageformats 5.82.0-1 lists libheif as an optional dependency. The closest Ubuntu package is libheif1, which is installed for me, yet the Ubuntu package of kimageformat-plugins seems to have no equivalent dependency.

007
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3 Answers3

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Unfortunately, HEIF images are still not supported in KDE Plasma / Gwenview as of Kubuntu 21.10 (and even Plasma 5.23 from the backports ppa), because the package kimageformat-plugins is compiled without HEIF support by default.

The support flag is not enabled yet in the default (K)ubuntu packages. There is a pending bug on launchpad "kimageformat-plugins should be built with HEIC / HEIF support” regarding this, please indicate that it also affects you and comment if needed.

I just managed to view HEIF images in Gwenview by recompiling the kimageformat-plugins package (I'm not a DEB expert, it is the first time I recompiled a DEB package, so please correct me if I'm doing something wrong, but it did work for me tonight):

[Update]: there is now a short bash script for the below mentioned recompiling steps you can just copy&paste and call after every package update available at https://superuser.com/a/1713233/196387 . Just use that an be happy! [/Update]

  1. Make sure deb-src lines are enabled /etc/apt/sources.list and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/kubuntu-ppa-ubuntu-backports.list (if you use the backports ppa with the latest KDE software)

  2. Install dependencies:

sudo apt-get install build-essential devscripts
sudo apt build-dep kimageformat-plugins
sudo apt install libheif-dev
  1. Create a directory somewhere, pull the package source into it and cd into the source directory kimageformats-5.xx.x within the new directory:
mkdir kimageformats-build
cd kimageformats-build
apt source kimageformat-plugins
cd kimageformats-5.*

  1. Edit the file CMakeLists.txt in this directory: In the line which says option(KIMAGEFORMATS_HEIF "Enable plugin for HEIF format" OFF) change OFF to ON

  2. Rebuild the package with debuild -us -uc -b

  3. Go into the parent directory (cd ..), there should be new .deb file called something like kimageformat-plugins_5.xx.**.deb (in my case today it was kimageformat-plugins_5.88.0-0ubuntu1~ubuntu21.10~ppa1_amd64.deb). Install that package by sudo apt install --reinstall ./kimageformat-plugins_5.*.deb

  4. As @user1421503 said in his answer: Edit /usr/share/kservices5/imagethumbnail.desktop and add image/heif to the line which begins with MimeType=

Enjoy viewing your iPhone images in Gwenview!

wasinger
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2

I was just trying to open a bunch of *.heic images, and found this question when neither Dolphin nor Gwenview could load them.

Luckily there is good news: just 'do-release-upgrade' to 22.10 (kinetic) and HEIC support is in (see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kimageformats/+bug/1951278/comments/5).

nagelp
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1

HEIF plug-in is included in kimageformats package but package maintainer has to explicitly enable it (use cmake with -DKIMAGEFORMATS_HEIF=ON). Otherwise the plug-in will not be built/installed (check if you have kimg_heif.so).

There is a pending bug on launchpad "kimageformat-plugins should be built with HEIC / HEIF support” regarding this, please indicate that it also affects you and comment if needed.

The plug-in needs libheif>=1.10.0 build with libde265 support.

If you have the kimg_heif.so installed, you can modify following file to enable HEIF/HEIC thumbnails:

/usr/share/kservices5/imagethumbnail.desktop

add image/heif to the line which begins with MimeType=

Filbuntu
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user1421503
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