Live Photos and privacy: what extra you share
A Live Photo is a few seconds of video with sound, not one frozen frame.
In short
A Live Photo records what happens 1.5 seconds before and after you take the picture, including audio. Sharing one can reveal more than the frame you chose — a voice, a screen, a person behind you. To send only the still, tap LIVE in the upper-left corner of the photo before sharing; to stop recording them, turn Live off in the Camera and keep it off with Settings › Camera › Preserve Settings.
Key takeaways
- A Live Photo includes 1.5 seconds before and after, with sound.
- Tap LIVE before sharing to send only the still image.
- Preserve Settings stops the Camera turning Live back on.
What a Live Photo contains
Live Photo is on by default. Each time you take a picture, your iPhone records what happens 1.5 seconds before and after, sound included. Your library shows a still; press and hold it and it plays. Whoever you send it to can do the same.
What that can reveal
- Voices and conversations around you, including your own.
- The moments before you framed the shot: a room, a screen, a document, someone you meant to leave out.
- Everything in the clip, whichever frame you chose as the key photo — changing the key photo doesn’t remove the rest.
Share only the still
- Open the photo and tap the Share button.
- Tap LIVE in the upper-left corner of the photo so that it is turned off.
- Choose how you want to share it.
Sent by Mail, a Live Photo goes as a still image anyway. Imported to a Mac with Image Capture, it arrives as two files — a still image and a video — so check both before passing them on. Turning Live off doesn’t remove location information; that is a separate choice when sharing.
Remove the motion from a photo you keep
Open the Live Photo in Photos, tap Edit, then tap LIVE at the top of the screen to turn the Live effect off. The edit can be turned back on later, so assume the motion is still stored with the photo.
Turn Live Photos off for good
- In the Camera app, in Photo mode, tap the Live Photo button — or swipe up from Photo mode and tap Live — and choose Off.
- Go to Settings › Camera › Preserve Settings and make sure the switch next to Live Photo is turned on.
Without the second step, the Camera turns Live Photo back on automatically. Live Photos also aren’t available when ProRAW or HEIF Max is turned on.
When the photo is private
For a photo that shouldn’t be in your library at all — a document, a prescription, an ID — the motion is one more thing to worry about. Latent’s secure camera captures straight into an encrypted vault, so the photo never passes through Photos, iCloud Photos or Recently Deleted.