Live Photo
Also known as: Live Photos, iPhone moving photo, live photo storage
A Live Photo is an iPhone still image bundled with a short ~3-second video and audio clip captured around the moment you press the shutter. Because it stores both a full-resolution photo and a small movie, a Live Photo takes up roughly twice the space of an ordinary still.
- A still plus a ~3-second moving clip with audio
- Roughly doubles the size of a normal photo
- Can be converted to a plain still to save space
How a Live Photo is stored
When Live is on, the camera records a brief moving clip — about 1.5 seconds before and after the shutter — alongside the still. The pairing is what lets you press and hold a photo to watch it move, but it also means each Live Photo is a photo plus a small .MOV file.
That extra movie roughly doubles the file size compared with a plain still. Across a full camera roll, Live Photos you do not actually play back can add up to meaningful space.
Turning the motion off
You can disable Live capture per shot with the Live button in the Camera app, or convert existing ones to stills: open a Live Photo, tap Edit, then the Live button, and turn it off to keep only the still frame. The motion is removed and the file shrinks back toward a normal photo’s size.