JPEG is lossy. Retention should still be short.
People search “without losing quality” because they have been burned by 40% JPEG sliders and mystery “optimize for web” pipelines. Honest version: JPEG always discards some information. A high-quality encode from the original HEIC keeps the picture looking like the iPhone still for email, portfolios, and print-shop kiosks. Pixel-peeping at 400% may show tiny differences versus a lossless PNG. That is the format, not a bug. Security on this path is transport plus retention, not a password locker for the JPEG itself. Uploads use HTTPS. Processing is ephemeral. After download, input and output are deleted. We do not train models on your camera roll. Do not put the download link and a password in the same email if you later wrap the file yourself. Prefer the original iPhone export over a screenshot of Instagram. Orientation metadata is preserved where the pipeline supports it. Always open the JPEG once before you delete the HEIC. Batch Pro uses the same quality-aware encode at folder scale.
What we will not claim
This is not bit-identical to HEIC. If you need a lossless graphic, use PNG. If you need a press master, use TIFF. JPEG is the interchange copy.