iOS: How to Duplicate a Live Photo as a Still One

I don’t like Live Photos. OK, OK, I’m sorry. I know I’ve gotta go spend some time in front of my Jony Ive shrine to atone for my sins. But still, I’ve had enough frustration with this feature that I’ve written a couple of times before about how to turn it off (and Jeff Gamet’s written about how to keep it off). If you like using this, however, you should know that there’s a built-in way under iOS to make a copy of the still version of a Live Photo without doing anything to the original. So if you’re really keen on preserving all of those seconds of accidental camera movement, then you can do so.

Too snarky? I’ll spend a few extra minutes in my shrine, I promise.

Anyway, this is really simple to do. First, find the Live Photo you’d like to preserve. You can tell which images were taken in this way by the little “Live” indicator on them.

Live Photo showing the Live badge in the upper left corner

Don’t make fun of the selfies in the row at the bottom, OK? I didn’t blur those out because I trust you all.

Anyway, after you find your photo, touch the small sharing arrow on the screen…

Tap the Sharing Arrow at the bottom of a Live Photo to see the Duplicate option

…and then you’ll see “Duplicate” in the bottom row of options.

The Duplicate Button in the Sharing options in Photos lets you make a copy of your Live Photo

Tap that, and voilà!

Choose Duplicate as Still Photo to make a copy of your Live Photo that's just a single image

Now I’m off to my shrine, I guess. I think “complaining about an Apple feature and then being snarky” has earned me at least an hour in there.

5 thoughts on “iOS: How to Duplicate a Live Photo as a Still One

  • Thank YOU for reading, dndgirl! 🙂 I appreciate the kind words.

    Lee, I don’t actually know anyone with a non-Apple phone—my friends, apparently, only come in one variety—but I did a search, and it looks like you can share those Live Photos through some third-party apps, at least. Hope that helps!

  • Thank you so much, Melissa! Another great tip. It isn’t that I dislike live photos, but when I had it turned on by accident at the San Diego Safari Park, I got some pretty strange photos of, let’s say, twitchy animals. Now I can fix them, thanks to you!!!

  • You aren’t alone, I don’t care for them either. 😉 They are pretty much just hi-res GIFs in my opinion, and I come from a time when GIFs were pretty much regarded as lo res-video. Still, having the option turned on by default means there are a few of them lurking around, good to know how to deal with them.

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