Do Live Photos take up
more storage? Yes.

What a Live Photo is

With Live Photo on, your iPhone records what happens 1.5 seconds before and after you take the picture, with the audio. Live Photo is on by default. When you copy one to a Mac with Image Capture it arrives as two files, a still image and a video.

Apple does not publish a size for a Live Photo. The extra space is the video part, so it depends on what was moving and how much sound there was.

Turn a Live Photo into a still

1. In Photos, open the Live Photo. To see them all, go to Media Types › Live Photos: on iOS 26 or later tap Collections first; on iOS 18 scroll down.
2. Tap the More button, then tap Duplicate.
3. Choose Duplicate as Still Photo. A still copy appears next to the original.
4. Delete the Live Photo, then empty Recently Deleted to get the space back.

Stop the Camera from shooting them

1. Open Camera in Photo mode.
2. On iOS 26 or later, tap the Camera Controls button or swipe up from Photo, tap Live and choose Off. On iOS 18, tap the Live Photo button at the top of the screen; a slash through it means Live Photo is off.
3. Open Settings › Camera › Preserve Settings and turn on Live Photo. Without this, Camera turns Live Photo on again by itself.

Convert many at once

Phone Cleaner lists Live Photos as a category on the Clean tab and shows what each one would weigh as a still. Select the ones you want and tap Convert to Still: each becomes a still copy and the Live Photo goes to Recently Deleted for 30 days. iOS asks you to confirm once, for all of them. Edits stay as the photo looks now, but can no longer be undone.

Step 1 of 5On the Clean tab, the Live Photos card shows the space they take: 31.4 GB. Tap it.

Step 2 of 5Each Live Photo shows its size now and as a still. Tap the ones to convert.

Step 3 of 5Three picked: converting them saves 50 MB. Tap Convert to Still.

Step 4 of 5Phone Cleaner says what changes before anything does. Tap Convert 3 Live Photos; iOS asks you to confirm once.

Step 5 of 53 converted, 50 MB saved. The Live Photos wait 30 days in Recently Deleted.