My iPhone storage is almost full, and I noticed Live Photos are taking up more space than I expected. I’m thinking about deleting or turning them off, but I’m not sure if the extra storage savings are worth losing the motion part of my pictures. Has anyone done this to free up iPhone storage, and did it actually help?
My fix for a phone full of Live Photos
I ran into this a while back. I checked my library and saw years of shots saved as Live Photos, even though I almost never played the motion part. I wanted to keep the photo, lose the extra clip.
Apple’s built-in way works, sort of. I tried it first. Fine for a handful. Bad once you’ve got a pile of them. Duplicating each one as a still photo, then deleting the Live version, got old fast. I quit after a few minutes.
What worked better for me was Clever Cleaner. I opened it, went into the Lives section, and it pulled all my Live Photos into one place. No scrolling through random albums. No guessing what was what.
What I did
- Open the Lives tab
- Sort by size if you want to clear the biggest files first
- Pick the Live Photos you want turned into regular stills
- Tap Compress
- Check the new still versions
- Remove the original Live Photos after you confirm everything looks right
It also shows the storage savings before you start, which helped me decide what was worth touching. After conversion, it asks what to do with the originals, so I didn’t feel like I was one tap away from deleting something I cared about.
The part I didn’t expect
I kept using the app after I finished this job. The Live Photo cleanup was only one piece of it.
Similars helped me cut duplicate shots.
Heavies found old huge videos I forgot were even on the phone.
Screenshots cleaned out years of junk, receipts, random error screens, shipping updates, all the usual stuff.
For me, those cleared more space than the Live Photos.
Stop your phone from making more of them
If you don’t want this problem again, turn Live Photos off in Camera, then make iPhone remember the setting.
Here’s the path:
Settings > Camera > Preserve Settings
Turn on the option for Live Photos preservation.
Also open the Camera app and tap the Live Photos icon near the top, the circles one, so it shows as off. If you skip the preserve setting, iOS sometimes flips it back on later. I found this out the annoyng way.
End result
What fixed it for me was simple enough.
Convert the existing Live Photos into still images.
Delete the original Live versions after checking them.
Turn off Live Photos in Camera so new ones stop piling up.
After I did that, the issue was done and stayed done.
1 Like
Worth it, but only if Live Photos are a big chunk of your storage.
Quick math. A normal iPhone photo is often around 2 to 5 MB. A Live Photo is often closer to 4 to 12 MB because it keeps the still plus a short video. If you have 2,000 Live Photos, that difference adds up fast. You might free 10 GB or more. For some people, that’s huge. For others, it barely moves the needle.
I kinda disagree with @mikeappsreviewer on one part. I would not mass-delete all Live Photos first. Some of them are worth keeping. Pets, kids, group shots, stuff where the motion helped. The rest, sure, trim them.
Best move is this:
- Check iPhone Storage and Photos usage first.
- See if Live Photos are the problem, or if videos and apps are worse.
- Keep favorite Live Photos.
- Convert or remove the rest.
- Turn Live off in Camera if you never use it.
Also, if your goal is free space fast, Live Photos are often not the biggest hog. Videos, screen recordings, downloaded media, and duplicate pics usually eat more. That’s why tools like Clever Cleaner help, since you can clean more than one category in one pass. Less manual work, less mess.
If you want a simple guide on how to clear iPhone storage for free, this is a solid walkthrough for how to clear iPhone storage fast and free.
So yes, deleting Live Photos is worth it if you never use the motion part. If your phone is full from video, old downloads, and junk screenshots, Live Photos alone wont fix it.
Yes, but only if Live Photos are actually a big chunk of the problem.
I kinda half-agree with @mikeappsreviewer and @sonhadordobosque here. Turning Live Photos off going forward makes sense if you never use the motion effect. No reason to keep making slightly bigger files forever. But I would not go on a deleting spree just because storage looks scary. On a lot of iPhones, the real space killers are videos, downloaded Netflix stuff, giant message attachments, and years of screenshots you forgot existed.
Live Photos do use more space, but not always enough to be your magic fix. If you’ve got a few hundred, meh. If you’ve got thousands, then yeah, it can matter quite a bit. That’s where it becomes worth checking.
My take:
- Keep Live Photos for stuff that benefits from motion
- Disable it for everyday random shots
- Don’t delete blindly before checking iPhone Storage breakdown
Also, one thing people skip: optimize storage before deleting memories. If you use iCloud Photos, turning on Optimize iPhone Storage can help a lot without nuking anything. That’s probly the least painful option.
If you want to review and clean photo clutter faster, Clever Cleaner is actually useful for this kind of job, especially if you’re sorting through large libraries and not just Live Photos. I’d look at a guide like how to free up iPhone storage with Clever Cleaner if you want a better idea of whether it fits your cleanup style.
Short version: worth it if you never care about the motion part. Not worth it if you’re deleting sentimental shots just to gain a tiny bit of space. Check the bigger storage hogs first, cuz Live Photos might not be the main villain.
