Preventing HEIC conversion to JPG when sharing pictures to Gmail app on iPhone

When in gallery and sharing an image via Gmail, it gets converted to a JPG file instead of staying as an HEIC image.

Is there any way to have this behave differently?


A bit roundabout but possible:

  1. From gallery, select the photos > tap Share > Save to Files.

  2. Go to Files app > tap More (3-dots icon) > Select > select the photos > tap More (3-dots) > Compress. This will zip them.

  3. Attach the zip file to Gmail and send. The recipient can download and unzip it to get HEIC images.