What are iPhone Live Photos? We explore the pros and cons of Apple’s ‘moving pictures,’ including storage impact, file management on PC/Mac, and how to preserve your camera settings.
iPhone Live Photos are more than just a camera setting; they are a hybrid media format that changes how you capture and store memories. While Apple markets this feature as a way to “bring your photos to life,” it comes with significant technical trade-offs regarding storage and file management. Understanding how iPhone Live Photos function—and how they impact your digital library—is essential for any user looking to keep their photo collection organized and efficient.
What are iPhone Live Photos?
Basically, Live Photos on iPhone is a regular digital photo and a short 2 seconds video recording a few moments before the photo. Essentially, the iPhone camera captures 2 media files, one photo and one video. When viewing a Live Photo, the iOS operating system plays the video file first and then it shows the picture.
How to Turn Off Live Photos?
How to turn off iPhone Live Photos
- Open the camera application on your iPhone.
- On the top right you will see the Live Photos symbol. If it’s yellow, it’s on. Tap it to turn it off.
- If Live Photos settings was on, when you turn it off, you will see the Live Off symbol appear for a couple of seconds. Then the Live Photos symbol on the top right will turn white and have a line through it showing it’s Live Photos was turned off.
How to Turn On Live Photos?
How to turn on iPhone Live Photos
- Open the camera application on your iPhone.
- On the top right you will see the Live Photos symbol. If it’s white with a line through it, it means it’s off. Tap it to turn it on.
- If Live Photos settings was off, when you turn it on, you will see the Live symbol appear for a couple of seconds. Then the Live Photo symbol will show yellow to indicate it’s on.
How To Make Sure Your iPhone Live Photos Settings Stick
This one is a bit strange for me, but maybe because Apple is really trying to push Live Photos on users. I’m not sure about the reasoning, but unless your Camera application has Preserve Settings turned on, you will have to turn on/off your Live Photos settings for every photo. Personally, I turn off Live Photos and I want it to stay off.
Open iPhone Camera Settings
Enable Preserve Settings for iPhone Live Photos
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So here is how to preserve Live photoS settings on your iPhone camera:
- Open Settings
- Open Camera Settings
- Open the Preserve Settings menu and make sure you enable Live Photo. This means that whenever you change the Live Photos setting in your camera, the setting will be preserved for the next photo. Additionally, I turn on Preserve Settings on all the available settings as well: Camera Mode and Creative Controls. Essentially I want the settings in my camera app to stick once I make them.
Pros and Cons of using iPhone Live Photos
The pros of using iPhone Live Photos is the end product itself. If you like seeing the couple of seconds of video before taking a photo on your iPhone, then use it and enjoy it. It’s as simple as that.
The cons of using iPhone Live Photos has more to do with transferring your photos from your phone to your computer and organizing your digital photos. For each photo you essentially download two files, a photo file and a video file. The additional video file not only acts as an extra file but also essentially doubles the storage space used for one image. To me, this is the greatest con of using iPhone Live Photos. Once transferred to my computer, I cannot see the photo and video together as that is a feature available only on my iPhone. So, once on my computer, the small video file is useless…in my opinion. Thus for me, I turn iPhone Live Photos off.
Should You Use iPhone Live Photos?
Ultimately, the answer depends on how you prioritize “the moment” versus the long-term health of your digital library. While these animations are a fun way to relive memories on your device, they often create a cluttered experience for anyone focused on organizing digital photos on a computer.
If you value a streamlined, high-quality collection without the storage bloat, turning this feature off is the best way to keep your library manageable. However, if you love the extra dimension of movement, ensure you have a solid transfer and backup strategy in place to handle the extra .mov files.
Regardless of which setting you choose, the goal is the same: making sure your photos are easy to find, enjoy, and preserve for years to come.
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Thanks for this explanation of “live”. The question I have that maybe you have already answered is this, when I have taken photos in the past two picture are on my phone, one I can delete and one I can not delete. How do I stop this and how do I get rid of the photo that doesn’t have a delete icon?
Robert…good question!
First off, the “live” feature of the iPhone camera does not produce 2 photo files. It produces a photo and a video file. On your phone however, you can only see one photo with the little movie before the photo was taken, you cannot see the 2 separate files. You can only see the 2 separate files when you download all your photos from your phone to your computer. On your computer you can sort your files by the file type and see all the .mov files and easily delete the ones that are very small.
However, when you download to your computer make sure you delete all your pictures from your phone, otherwise all the little “movies” you deleted on your computer will be re-downloaded the next time you download media from your phone.