Live Photos are a fun way to bring your iPhone or iPad’s still photos to life. However, the feature can also take up a lot of space on your device.
If you’re concerned about your storage, you can easily disable Live Photos on your iPhone or iPad. All you need to do is open the Camera app and tap the Live Photos icon so it has a line slashed through it.
How to Turn Off Live Photos
Whether you’re someone who just doesn’t like the moving image effect or someone who wants to free up more storage space on your iPhone, it’s possible to disable Live Photos. And it’s actually easier than you might think.
If you’re using an iPhone 6s or later, an iPad 5th generation, iPad Air (3rd generation), or an iPad mini (5th generation) that has iOS 16, then you can do this in just a few taps.
However, you might have a bit of trouble disabling Live Photos on older models. That’s because the feature is on by default and automatically turns on when you take a photo.
There’s also a setting on the Camera app that will allow you to turn Live Photos off on a case-by-case basis. That way, it will preserve the last settings that you used for Live Photos and won’t turn them on automatically when you take a new photo.
How to Turn Live Photos Back On
Live Photos are a neat feature that allows you to take a photo that looks like it’s moving when you press the shutter button. However, they can also use a lot of storage on your iPhone or iPad.
This is because your phone takes up to 1.5 seconds of video before and after you press the shutter button, and then creates a short animation out of the images it captures. That means that every Live Photo you take uses up twice as much space on your phone or iCloud as a standard still image.
If you don’t want to use up this extra space, you can disable Live Photos on your iPhone or iPad. Then, when you launch the Camera app later, it will default to being in still photo mode, rather than Live Photo mode.
How to Turn Live Photos Off for a Specific Photo
If you’re not a fan of Live Photos, you can disable them on your iPhone or iPad. It’s a quick and easy process that only takes a few taps to get started.
You can also turn Live Photos Off for a Specific Photo, which is ideal if you want to save battery or storage on your device. Simply select the Live Photo you want to disable, and tap the Edit button at the top of the screen.
You can also enable a permanent setting called Preserve Settings to keep your Live Photo preferences in the Camera app. It’s a great way to ensure that your settings stay intact when you upgrade to a new phone.
How to Turn Live Photos Off for All Photos
If you are sick of the Live Photos animations, or just want to turn them off for all photos on your iPhone or iPad, iOS 16 makes it easy. The Camera app has a button for disabling the feature that looks like an animated yellow bullseye icon.
You can also disable the feature permanently in the Settings app, by choosing Preserve Settings. This will save your camera settings so that your iPhone will always keep the settings you choose even when the Live Photos option is disabled.
However, this technique will not delete the file information, so if you decide to use Live Photos again in the future, it will take up a lot more storage space. There is another, slightly more complex way to convert Live Photos into still images that will also retain the Live Photo aspect.
