How to Turn a Live Photo into a Still Photo

It is easy to lose track of the Live photos function in your iPhone camera app.  As a result, you may take a photo as a Live photo when a regular still photo is your intent.  A Live photo takes more storage on your device and in some cases you might find any movement simply annoying.

Here are two methods to turn off the Live:

  1.  Turn the Live Photo Off
  2. Duplicate as Still Photo

If you want to better manage your Live Photos default settings, see our lesson:  Turn Off Live Photos

Turn Off Live Photo

You can turn off a Live photo and stop the motion.  Here are the steps:

1 Display the Live photo.

2 Tap the Live indicator on the upper left of the photo.

3 Tap Off. 

This action will turn off the movement and allow you to restore the movement at a later point.  However, it does not permanently convert the Live photo to a still photo and reduce the storage.  

Duplicate as Still Photo

A more permanent method for turning a Live photo into a still photo is to use the Duplicate as Still Photo method.  This action will duplicate or copy the original into a still photo.  This leaves the original Live photo intact.  If you want to reduce the space required by the Live photo, you can then delete the Live photo and enjoy the newly created still photo.

 

Here are the steps:

1 Display the Live photo that you wish to convert.

2 Tap the ellipsis (three dots) on the upper right of the photo display.

3 Tap Duplicate.

4 Tap Duplicate as Still Photo

5 Your new still photo

If you wish to save the storage space and keep your Photo Library tidy, you can now delete the original live photo.

 

Please remember that your photos are stored chronologically in your Photo Library.  This means that you will find the new still duplicate at the same date as the original live.  You will have to scroll back to the original date to find it.  

Summary

Use Duplicate as Still Photo to permanently convert a Live Photo to a still.  To better manage your Live Photo selection, see our lesson:  Turn Off Live Photos