How to convert live photo to regular photo

The Live Photos feature on new iPhone cameras is fun and interesting as it turns a still photo into a short live action clip automatically. While you can turn the Live Photos feature off and on easily with a quick toggle, another approach is to not think about it by leaving the feature on, then simply converting the Live Photo to a Still Photo if you no longer want it to be an animated live action shot.

Table of Contents Show

How to Convert a Live Photo to a Still Picture on iPhone
Why You'll Love This Tip
How to Change Live Photo to Still on iPhone
How do I convert live photos to still photos on Iphone?
How do I get a still from a live photo?
Can you turn off live photos already taken?
Can I turn a live photo into a JPEG?

The is a nice quick little trick, allowing you to instantly turn any live photo back into a still photo, right on the iPhone, without having to perform any other adjustments.

How to Convert a Live Photo to a Still Picture on iPhone

This obviously requires an iPhone camera capable of shooting Live Photos (6s or better), otherwise you won’t have the live photos option in general and wouldn’t need to turn it off or convert a picture:

Open the Photos app on the iPhone and tap to select the Live Photo you wish to convert to a still photo
Tap the Edit button in the corner of the picture

Now tap the little concentric circles icon button in the opposite corner, this is the same as the Live Photos button in the Camera app, except that tapping it here turns the Live Photo feature off for an already taken image

Tap on “Done” to convert the live photo to a still photo

It takes a moment to turn the live animated image to a still.

You’ll see a brief “Saving Photo” message and the pictures will be transformed into a still photo. Selecting the image again will display it as a normal photo, and 3D touch will no longer animate the image.

The example image below started off as a Live Photo of wind blowing through trees captured on an iPhone 6s Plus, whereas it’s now a still photo.

You can actually change it back again and convert the still photo back into a Live Photo by performing the same action but tapping to enable the live photos in the photos editor again, but that’s only possible for pictures that were once taken with Live Photos, you can’t turn a normal still photo into a live photo otherwise.

This is helpful if you want to share a picture with someone but don’t want to share the live photo version of it, or if you’ve had the Live Photos feature on and just don’t use it, you can convert the picture(s) to stills and then when you copy the images to a computer from the iPhone, the Live Photo versions won’t come over with the associated movie files, only still JPEG files will arrive in the transfer.

One final thing to keep in mind is that if you save and modify a converted Live Photo to a regular still photo, it can’t be converted back again, which means something like Live Photo gif conversion would no longer be possible on that specific image.

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Wondering, “How do I turn off a Live Photo?” If a Live Photo you take captures a bit of video or audio you don’t want, you can convert the Live Photo to a still image and keep or delete the original. Here's how to change a Live Photo to a still picture.

Related: How to Crop a Live Photo on iPhone (2022 Update)

Why You'll Love This Tip

Save a Live photo as a still if you don't like the video or audio captured in the Live Photo.
Save iPhone storage when you convert a Live Photo to still and delete the Live Photo.

How to Change Live Photo to Still on iPhone

Can you save a still from a Live Photo? Yes! It’s easy to save a Live Photo as still and keep the Live Photo intact. This is helpful if you plan to edit a Live Photo but don’t want to lose the live version, or if you just want to save iPhone storage. Here’s how to convert a Live Photo to still. You can also delete a Live Photo and keep the still version of a photo. Check out our free Tip of the Day for more great Live Photo tutorials.

Open the Photos App.
Tap the Albums tab, then scroll to the bottom and tap Live Photos.
Tap the Live Photo you want to turn into a still, then tap the Share icon.
Select Duplicate.
Tap Duplicate as Still Photo.

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How do I convert live photos to still photos on Iphone?

Make a still photo: Tap the Live button at the top of the screen to turn off the Live feature. The Live Photo becomes a still of its key photo.

How do I get a still from a live photo?

Open the Live Photo and tap Edit. Tap the Live Photos button . Move the slider to change the frame. Release your finger, then tap Make Key Photo.

Can you turn off live photos already taken?

Another good news is that you can turn off Live Photos for pictures you've already taken. For example, you may want to do this before sharing. When you do this, your Live Photo will look like a regular photo.

Can I turn a live photo into a JPEG?

Converting Live Photos to JPG can be easy with the two methods. If you want to make a Live Photo a still photo, you can directly do it within the Photos app. While if you want to convert them to JPG, you need to use a photo converter like EaseUS MobiMover to help.