How to turn Live Photos into still photos on iPhone

A Live Photo is two files saved together: the still picture you see in the library and a short video of the moments around the shutter press. Live is on by default in the Camera app, so many libraries hold thousands of them, and most are never played.

Because the motion is stored as a separate video, each Live Photo uses more space than a plain photo of the same scene. This guide explains the options iOS gives you, what each one really changes, and how to convert many Live Photos at once.

Stop new photos from being saved as Live Photos

In the Camera app, tap the Live Photos button at the top so it is crossed out. iOS turns Live back on the next time you open the Camera unless you also go to Settings → Camera → Preserve Settings and turn on Live Photo. From then on, the camera remembers your last choice.

What switching Live off in the Photos app does

Open a Live Photo, tap Edit and turn Live off in the Live Photos controls. The picture now behaves like a still, and you can turn Live back on at any time.

That reversibility is the catch. Edits in Photos are non-destructive, so the original, motion included, stays in the library. Switching Live off changes how the photo is shown, not what is stored. For a handful of photos there is a manual route: choose Duplicate in the photo's menu, pick the option to duplicate it as a still photo, then delete the original. To see every Live Photo in one place, open the Live Photos album under Media Types.

Decide which ones keep their motion

• Keep the motion where it is the point: a first step, a laugh, a wave breaking. Loop and Bounce effects also need it.
• Convert the ones where motion adds nothing: documents, landscapes, food, things you photographed to remember.
• Check the frame first. After conversion only the picture shown in the library remains. If another frame was better, choose it as the key photo in the Photos editor before converting.
• Mark keepers as favourites. Favourites carry a badge in Pruna's list, which makes them easy to skip.

Converting Live Photos with Pruna

1. Open Pruna and allow access to your photos. On the Clean tab, open Live Photos. They are listed largest first, each with the size of its motion part; a size marked ≈ is an estimate.
2. Tap a thumbnail to see it full screen, then tick the ones you want as stills. Nothing is selected for you. To take a photo off the list for good, touch and hold it and choose Keep.
3. Choose Keep as still and confirm once in the iOS prompt. Each Live Photo is replaced by a new still photo with the same capture date, location and favourite mark, and the original, with its motion, moves to Recently Deleted.
4. If you would rather remove some Live Photos completely, the same screen offers to delete them instead.
5. If a still image cannot be read, that Live Photo is left unchanged and Pruna tells you how many were converted.

What changes and what does not

• Albums and captions are not carried over to the new still. Any edit you made becomes part of the still and can no longer be reverted.
• The still counts as added today, so it can show up among recently added items. Its capture date stays the same.
• The originals keep using space until they leave Recently Deleted, when you empty that album in Photos or automatically after 30 days. Until then you can recover them.
• With iCloud Photos, the change reaches every device signed in to the same Apple Account.
• Live Photos are not part of Smart Clean. Converting them is always a separate step with its own confirmation.
• Browsing the list is free. Keeping Live Photos as stills and deleting them are part of Pruna Pro, whose price is shown in the App Store before you subscribe.