The Storage-Eating Videos
By default, the iPhone Camera app has a feature called “Live Photos” turned on. Whenever you press the shutter button to take a photograph, the phone doesn’t just capture a still image; it secretly records 1.5 seconds of video before you press the button, and 1.5 seconds of video after. While this is fun for capturing moving subjects like children or pets, it is a disaster for your device storage. A standard photograph might be 3 Megabytes, but a Live Photo can easily be 8 Megabytes. If you are taking hundreds of photos of static objects (like documents, food, or landscapes), you are rapidly filling up your iCloud storage with useless video clips. If you want a traditional camera experience, you must disable the feature.
How to Turn Off Live Photos Temporarily
You can turn off the feature directly inside the Camera interface, but Apple makes it confusing.
- Open the Camera app on your iPhone.
- Look at the very top right corner of the screen for an icon that looks like three concentric circles.
- If the circles are yellow, Live Photos is ON.
- Tap the circles icon once. It will turn white with a slash through it, and the word “Live Off” will briefly appear.
How to Disable Live Photos Permanently
If you perform the steps above, the Camera app will often quietly turn Live Photos back on the next time you open the app. To force the Camera to permanently remember your choice, you must alter the system settings.
- Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
- Scroll down and tap on Camera.
- Tap on Preserve Settings.
- Look for the toggle switch labeled Live Photo.
- Toggle the switch to the On (green) position.
This setting sounds counter-intuitive, but you are telling the operating system to preserve whatever state the button is currently in. If you turn Live Photos off in the Camera app now, it will permanently stay off until you explicitly choose to tap the icon again.