What are Live Photos?

Many visually impaired people take photos using the Camera app on their iPhone or iPad. What they may not realise is that they may be shooting what Apple calls Live Photos. These are photos which are a still photo together with a video clip of up to around 3 seconds, half before you tap the button to take the photo and half after. If you don't want the video clip this unnecessarily significantly increases the storage consumed by your photos. Live Photo is probably turned on by default in your Camera app and if you turn it off for a session it will be turned back on for the next camera session unless you make a change in Camera settings.

You can discover your Live Photos as follows:

Open Photos and navigate back to the main screen if necessary.

Select the Collections tab at the bottom of the screen.

Scroll to the Media Types heading.

Tap Live Photos.

You will probably now have on screen your collection of Live Photos. They don't look very alive but if you open a photo and then rest a finger on it the video and its sound will play. If you are using VoiceOver double tap and leave your finger resting on the screen. If you didn't realise you were shooting Live Photos it's possible that the video will include quite a lot of unwanted camera movement.

In the Camera app, Live Photo is changed between On, Automatic and Off using the concentric circles icon that appears when the six-dot camera controls icon near top right of the Camera screen is used. Depending on your Camera settings there may also be a Live Photo icon permanently at the top of the Camera screen. I don't know what the Automatic setting does but  don't rely on it to avoid shooting Live Photos of static subjects. At the time of writing Apple doesn't seem to provide a description of this setting which is the default Live Photo setting.

If you can see them, Live Photos may be a fun choice for some subjects such as a child blowing out birthday cake candles but it's unlikely they will add much to photos of flowers or someone posing stiffly for a photo. Of course, the video's 3 second sound clip might bring something special for people who can't see the video. If you do decide to shoot Live Photos it's usually best to keep the camera steady while shooting a live photo in order to avoid your subject bobbing about the screen in the video clip. 

In the Photos app there are several choices for viewing Live Photos.Use the Live Photo button which appears at the top of the opened photo to select between  Live, Loop, Bounce, Long Exposure and Live Off. If you select either Loop or Bounce, the video clip will play continuously whenever the photo is opened with no need to touch the photo. Loop continuously replays the video and Bounce continuously plays the video forward and then backward. Long Exposure can be used to blur moving parts of an image, such as giving a milky appearance to flowing water while keeping the surrounding landscape sharply focused.

If a Live Photo is edited, the Live Photo button allows you to select the key frame, the image that is shown as the still image and you can also mute the audio.

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updated 10 February 2026