How to Turn Live Photo On and Off on iPhone

Live Photo is on by default on iPhone. To toggle it in Camera, tap the yellow concentric-circles icon in the top toolbar — yellow means on, white with a slash means off.

The toggle takes effect immediately for the next shot. No restart or confirmation needed. Live Photo is available on iPhone 6s (iOS 9) and every model since.

How to Turn Live Photo On or Off Per Shot

Every time you open the Camera app, Live Photo is ready in whatever state you last left it. The icon sits in the top row of Camera controls:

Open the Camera app.
Make sure you're in Photo mode (not Video, Portrait, or Pano).
Tap the concentric circles icon at the top center of the screen.
- Yellow = Live Photo is on. Your next photo will capture 1.5 seconds of motion before and after the shutter.
- White with a diagonal slash = Live Photo is off. Your next photo is a standard still.

That's it — 1 tap, done in under 2 seconds. The setting stays where you leave it until you change it again or until the app resets it (see below).

Forgot to flip Live on before that perfect shot? You can't go back and re-capture it — but Lockimate can generate Live motion onto any still you already have, no reshoot needed.

Add motion to my photo

How to Keep Live Photo On (or Off) Permanently

By default, iOS resets Live Photo to on every time you reopen Camera. If you always want it off — or always on — use Preserve Settings:

Open Settings.
Tap Camera.
Tap Preserve Settings.
Toggle Live Photo to on (green).

With Preserve Settings enabled, Camera remembers your last Live Photo state across app launches. If you turned it off before closing Camera, it stays off when you reopen it.

This setting is available on iOS 14 and later.

Live Photo On vs Off — File Size, Use Cases, Battery

	Live Photo ON	Live Photo OFF
File size	~6–8 MB per photo (still + 3-sec clip)	~2–4 MB per photo (still only)
Battery drain	Slightly higher (records video buffer continuously)	Lower
Lock screen wallpaper	Animates on raise-to-wake	Static only
Best for	Portraits, memories, action moments	Screenshots, documents, low-storage situations
Sharing	Full animation on iPhone-to-iPhone AirDrop/iMessage	Standard JPEG everywhere
Storage impact	~2–3× more than a still	Baseline

Live Photos take roughly double the storage of a regular photo because each one stores both a JPEG key photo and a short .mov video clip. For a deeper explanation of how the format works, see what a Live Photo is on iPhone.

How to Turn Off Live Photo for All New Photos by Default

If you want Live Photo off permanently without reaching for the Camera icon every time:

Settings → Camera → Preserve Settings → Live Photo ON: Then turn Live Photo off once in Camera. It stays off every session.
Alternatively, on iOS 16 and later, you can set a Camera lock-screen shortcut that defaults to standard photo mode.

There is no system-level "always off" toggle in a single step — the Preserve Settings + one manual toggle combination is the closest iOS comes to it.

Can You Convert a Regular Photo to a Live Photo?

No. The iPhone Camera is the only native source of a Live Photo. A regular still you've already taken cannot be retroactively turned into a Live Photo through the Photos app or iOS settings.

The only way to add motion to an existing still photo is with a third-party app. Lockimate is built specifically for this: pick any still photo, choose an animation vibe (Warm, Playful, Cinematic, or Lively), and it outputs a native .heic + .mov Live Photo ready to set as your lock screen wallpaper. The first wallpaper is free.

This is meaningfully different from a video loop or a GIF — Lockimate produces a real Apple Live Photo format that animates on raise-to-wake without any workarounds.

How Live Photo Affects Portrait Mode and Video

Live Photo is available in Photo and Portrait modes. In Portrait mode on iOS 15+, Live Photo is on by default and captures depth data alongside the motion clip. In Video mode, Live Photo is not applicable — video is already recording full motion.

Square mode does support Live Photo. Panorama and Time-Lapse do not.

How to Tell If a Photo in Your Library Is a Live Photo

In the Photos app:

A small Live badge appears in the top-left corner of the photo when you open it.
In grid view, long-press any thumbnail — a Live Photo animates on press; a regular still does not.
In the Edit screen, the yellow Live button at the top center is present only on Live Photos — from here you can also change the key frame or apply effects, covered in editing a Live Photo.

If the Live badge is missing, the photo was shot with Live Photo off or on a device that doesn't support it.

FAQ

Does turning Live Photo off delete existing Live Photos?

No. Turning off Live Photo in Camera only affects photos taken after that point. All existing Live Photos in your library remain unchanged, with full motion and audio intact.

Does Live Photo drain battery faster?

Yes, but minimally. The Camera app continuously buffers video in the background whenever you're in Camera with Live Photo on — this adds a small processing load. Apple's internal testing has not published a precise percentage, but most users report under 5% additional drain per hour of active Camera use. For all-day shooting sessions it becomes more noticeable.

Why is the Live Photo icon missing from my Camera?

3 possible causes: (1) You're in a mode that doesn't support Live Photo — switch to Photo mode. (2) Low Power Mode is active on iOS 15 and earlier, which disables Live Photo capture. (3) Storage is critically full (under ~500 MB free), which can cause Camera to disable Live Photo automatically to avoid recording failures.

Can I turn on Live Photo for a video I've already recorded?

No. Videos are a different format (.mov or .mp4) and cannot be converted to Live Photos through native iOS tools. Some third-party apps let you extract a short clip from a video and wrap it in a Live Photo container. Lockimate can also take a still frame and generate a new animated Live Photo from scratch. See the guide on turning a video into a Live Photo for the full walkthrough.

Does Live Photo work on iPhone SE?

Yes. Every iPhone SE — 1st generation (2016, iOS 9.3), 2nd generation (2020), and 3rd generation (2022) — supports Live Photo capture. The concentric-circles icon appears in Camera on all three models.