Live Photos can take up to 20 times more storage compared to regular photos. So, if you’ve snapped a lot of Live Photos in the past, converting them to stills might help you save significant space on your iPhone or iPad.

This article will explore a way to convert your existing Live Photos to Still images.

 
Save Live Photos as Still Images on iPhone

We have created a quick shortcut to convert your Live Photos available in the Photos app. Just follow the steps below to save your Live Photos as still images on iPhone or iPad.

Note: Ensure that the Shortcuts app is available on your device.

  1. On your iPhone, open the Settings app, go to Shortcuts and ensure the “Allow Untrusted Shortcuts” option is enabled.
  2. Open this link (Live To Still) on your iPhone. You’ll be redirected to the Shortcuts app. In the “Add Shortcut” screen, scroll down to the bottom and tap on Add Untrusted Shortcut.
  3. In the Shortcuts app, go to My Shortcuts and run the newly added Shortcut (Live To Still) by tapping on it.
  4. You might get a prompt to allow the Shortcut to access your photos. Tap OK to Continue.
  5. You’ll get a photo selection screen showing your Live Photos, where you need to Select the Live Photos that you want to convert.
  6. With the selections done, tap on Add from the top right corner.

Allow the shortcut to complete the conversion. You’ll get a “Converted!” notification on successful completion. The Shortcut might ask you for additional permission to allow notifications from it for this purpose.

After the shortcut has completed its work, the still versions of the Live Photos will be available in the Recents album inside the Photos app.

If you want to delete the original Live Photos, you need to go to the Photos app, tap on the Albums tab, then scroll down and select Live Photos under the Media Types section. Here, you can manually select and delete the live photos that you’ve just converted to stills.

And that’s it! With the Live Photos deleted, you may be able to free up a significant amount of space on the iPhone.

If you’d like to turn off Live Photos permanently in the Camera app, you may check out our dedicated article on the same.