How to export Live Photos as standalone videos

You’ve been able to save a single Live Photo as a still image on your iPhone for quite some time. But did you know you can just as easily make a short video from a Live Photo and even stitch together multiple Live Photos to create a single mini-video of your memories!

Save Live Photo as video on iPhone

Live Photo to video

Saving Live Photos as a video was introduced as part of the iOS 13 and iPadOS software updates first previewed at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference held in the summer of 2019. Frankly, it should have been available from the start, but better late than never, I guess. Before, you had to use a third-party app to turn multiple Live Photos into a single video.

Live Photos require iPhone 6s or later, fifth-generation iPad or newer, third-generation iPad Air or later, fifth-generation iPad mini or later, any iPad Pro model, or the seventh-generation iPod touch.

How to export Live Photos as video

iOS 13, iPadOS, and later let you export a single Live Photo as a video file or stitch together multiple Live Photos to create a single video. Read on for the full description of both of these methods.

Export a single Live Photo as a video

Here’s how to save a Live Photo as a video:

1) Open the Photos app on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

2) Select the Albums tab from the bottom.

3) Scroll down and tap Live Photos under Media Types.

4) Choose a Live Photo you’d like to save as a video.

5) Tap the Share button.

6) Scroll down and choose Save as Video.

export Live Photos
No need to turn to another app like iMovie just to save a Live Photo as a video.

Find your newly created video in the Recents album in Photos. The video is saved with the timestamp of the creation date. The Live Photo remains in the Photos app until deleted.

Each Live Photo results in a two-second video, but your mileage may vary as I’ve seen longer and shorter Live Photo videos as well. This will not work if only the Live Photo’s still image is enabled or if your Live Photo has a motion effect like Loop, Bounce, or Long Exposure.

In the case of the former, open the Live Photo and tap Edit. Hit the Live Photo icon at the bottom and tap the label “LIVE” at the top, so it turns yellow. Finally, tap Done to save changes.

If one of your Live Photos has a motion effect applied to it, like Bounce, tap it and choose Live.

Export multiple Live Photos as a video

Saving multiple Live Photos as a single video is a nice and easy way to quickly create a showreel of sorts or a dynamic video based on the recent trip you took.

Follow the steps below to combine many Live Photos into a video:

1) Open the Photos app and tap Albums.

2) Scroll down and tap Live Photos underneath the Media Types heading.

3) Tap Select, then choose all the Live Photos you’d like turned into a single video.

Note: In its documentation, Apple says that you must select consecutive Live Photos. In my experience, the selected Live Photos don’t have to be related or successive.

4) Tap the Share button.

5) Scroll down and choose Save as Video.

export Live Photos
Save Live Photos you took on a trip as a fun video.

All of the Live Photos you selected will be turned into a single video that gets saved in the Recents album on your iPhone and iPad. Live Photo conversion is non-destructible, meaning that any Live Photos you’ve saved as a video remain in the Photos app until you delete them manually.

Keep in mind that those videos cannot exist next to their related Live Photos events because they’re saved with the timestamp of the creation date instead of the last Live Photo.

As mentioned, if you don’t see the Save as Video action in the Share sheet, that’s because one of the selected Live Photos has the motion effect applied to it, like Bounce, Loop, or Long Exposure.

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