Live Photos: What They Are and How to Convert

What a Live Photo is on disk

When Live Photo is on, the Camera app keeps what happens just before and just after the shutter. Apple's wording is that the iPhone records what happens 1.5 seconds before and after (opens in a new tab) you take a picture, which is about three seconds of motion around a key photo. Photos shows the result as one item with a LIVE badge, and pressing and holding it plays the clip.

Underneath, Apple's own developer documentation treats it as separate resources. PhotoKit lists the original photo data and the original video component of a Live Photo asset (opens in a new tab) as different resource types, and Apple's Photos guide for the Mac says an unmodified export writes two separate files: a still-image file and a video file (opens in a new tab).

The still is HEIC when the camera is set to High Efficiency. If you choose Most Compatible, Apple says new photos and videos use JPEG or H.264 (opens in a new tab), so a Live Photo's still is then a JPEG. Live Photos work on iPhone 6s and later, plus several iPad models, per Apple's Live Photos page (opens in a new tab). For the container itself, see what HEIC is.

How the two files find each other

The link between the two files is an identifier. ExifTool's tag reference (opens in a new tab) lists a ContentIdentifier tag (0x0011) in the Apple maker note of the still. Its QuickTime table (opens in a new tab) lists a matching content.identifier key in the clip, plus a still-image-time key that marks where the still sits in the movie. Apple documents the QuickTime side only as an identifier that represents the content identifier (opens in a new tab).

The practical consequence is simple: a tool that reads only the HEIC has no clip to work with, because the clip is not inside the HEIC. The still carries a reference to its partner, not the motion itself. You can see what a still carries with the metadata viewer or the HEIC inspector.

What you keep when you export, share or convert

Where your Live Photo goes after Photos also matters. iCloud Photos stores Live Photos in their original formats at full resolution (opens in a new tab), so the pair survives syncing between Apple devices. It is the routes in the table, not iCloud, that decide what leaves the Apple ecosystem.

Convert a Live Photo to JPG

If you have the HEIC half, converting it works like converting any HEIC. Our converter decodes the still image and writes a JPG, entirely in your browser; nothing is uploaded. It does not read the motion clip and it does not copy EXIF or GPS into the output, so the JPG is a plain still.

For more than a handful of photos use the batch HEIC converter, or the standard HEIC to JPG page for single files. If a converted file looks wrong, the troubleshooting guide covers the common causes.

Get the video, or make a GIF

On the iPhone: a video file

1. 01

   Open the Live Photo

   In Photos, scroll to Media Types and tap Live Photos, then tap the one you want.

2. 02

   Save it as a video

   Tap the More button in the upper-right corner, then Save as Video. Per Apple's guide (opens in a new tab), the video appears in the Recently Saved album and the Live Photo remains in Live Photos.

3. 03

   Combine several if you need to

   Apple suggests iMovie for joining videos made from Live Photos.

On a Mac: the original files, or a GIF

In Photos on a Mac, File, Export, Export Unmodified Original writes the Live Photo as a still file and a video file, per Apple's export guide (opens in a new tab). That is the only route in our table that hands you both halves untouched, which makes it the right choice for archiving or for moving a Live Photo to a computer that is not a Mac.

For a GIF, Apple's steps (opens in a new tab) are: double-click the Live Photo, click Edit, choose the Bounce effect from the pop-up menu at the bottom right, click Done, then File, Export, Export GIF. If the GIF option is not available, Apple says to export the unmodified original, which gives a short video instead.

iCloud, Windows, Android and Google Photos

iCloud

From iCloud.com, Apple's download page (opens in a new tab) offers Unmodified Originals, Highest Resolution (typically HEIC or H.265) and Most Compatible (JPEG or MP4/H.264). That page does not mention Live Photos, so we cannot say how a Live Photo arrives under each option. Check the files you get before you delete anything.

Windows

We found no Apple or Microsoft page that describes how Windows plays or imports a Live Photo, so we make no claim about it. What the documentation does support is the structure: an ordinary still and a QuickTime video. For iCloud for Windows, Apple's troubleshooting page says that in version 7.x each Live Photo appeared as both a video and a key still image (opens in a new tab), and that the latest version shows a JPEG or MOV file. To open the still on Windows, see opening HEIC on Windows.

Android and Google Photos

Android's Motion Photo is a different mechanism. Per Android's format documentation (opens in a new tab), a Motion Photo is a single file: a JPEG, HEIC or AVIF still with a video appended at the end, described by XMP. An iPhone Live Photo is two files tied by an identifier, so the two are not interchangeable file for file.

Google Photos lists Live Photos as supported when you use its app on an iPhone or iPad (opens in a new tab) and notes that the on-device size may not match the backup size. Google's help pages we read say nothing about how Live Photos play back or download, so we do not describe that. For HEIC on Android in general, see HEIC on Android.

What we could not verify

• What AirDrop and Messages deliver for a Live Photo on every combination of device and iOS version. Apple's sharing pages we opened did not say.
• How Windows Photos imports a Live Photo from an iPhone.
• Whether the Shortcuts app's Make GIF action accepts a Live Photo directly.
• How Google Photos plays, converts or downloads an iPhone Live Photo.
• What iCloud.com delivers for a Live Photo under each download option.
• The codec and audio details of the paired clip. Apple's pages say the Live Photo captures audio and extra frames, but we did not find them spelled out for the file.

We have no phones in the lab and have not tested these routes on devices; everything above rests on the pages cited. If you find a behaviour that differs, tell us and we will check it and correct the page.