{"id":57219,"date":"2026-02-01T20:49:32","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T20:49:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cleverfiles.com\/howto\/?p=57219"},"modified":"2026-02-01T20:49:45","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T20:49:45","slug":"how-to-delete-the-live-part-from-all-photos-on-iphone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cleverfiles.com\/howto\/remove-live-photos-on-iphone.html","title":{"rendered":"How to Delete the Live Part From All Photos on iPhone"},"content":{"rendered":"

Want to delete live photos from your iPhone, but still keep them as regular still pictures? Not every photo has to be Live, but the feature is on by default, and you might already have hundreds (if not thousands) of “wasteful” Live Photos in your library… Who needs Live receipts, right?<\/p>\r\n

So, we wrote this guide to help you tidy up. After testing several methods, we found the most efficient workflow to remove just the “Live” part of the photos or delete all Live Photos from your iPhone entirely. It’s free and has helped us clear several gigabytes instantly (with a moderate-sized library).<\/p><\/div>\r\n

<\/span>Why Do Live Photos Take Up More Storage?<\/span><\/h2>\r\n

Live Photos are made up of a combination of (1) a still image and (2) short video clips before and after the image was captured (as well as the accompanying audio). This is why Live Photos take up so much more storage space compared to still images.<\/p>\r\n

To show you a real-life example, we used the Export Unmodified<\/b> feature in the Photos app on macOS on a Live photo from our library. This resulted in 2 files: the still image (left), and the video clip (right). The high-quality still image is 176 KB<\/b>, while the video clip is 1.8 MB<\/b>. The actual Live photo would combine both these files, resulting in a total size of 1.98 MB<\/b>.<\/p>\r\n

\"Still<\/p>\r\n

Live photos is an awesome<\/b> feature for occasions that justify it\u2014like someone blowing out their birthday cake, a surprise from friends, and other special events. But that only makes up a small part of most people\u2019s photo library. For more mundane photos, like pictures of receipts, shots of menus from establishments, and other less \u201cdramatic\u201d (but more common) images, utilizing the Live photos feature just wastes a lot of storage space.<\/p>\r\n

This guide will demonstrate how to get rid of such \u201cwasteful\u201d Live Photos in your library. It\u2019s divided into 2 parts that you can choose from, depending on your goals: (a) remove the \u201cLive\u201d part but keep a still photo copy,<\/a> and (b) completely remove Live Photos on your iPhone<\/a>.<\/div>\r\n

<\/span>How to Remove the Live Part of a Photo on an iPhone But Keep the Still Version<\/span><\/h2>\r\n

In this section, we\u2019ll show you 3 different ways to remove Live from your iPhone photos, while saving a copy of its still image. We wrote them in order of efficiency\u2014starting with the method that accomplishes this two-step process (saving the still image, then eliminating the rest of the Live photo) with the least amount of effort.<\/p>\r\n

<\/span>Method 1:<\/span> Use iPhone Cleaner App<\/span><\/h3>\r\n

After a lot of research and testing different ways to remove the \u201cLive\u201d part from your photos, we found that using an app<\/a> provided the fastest and most efficient experience, especially for large libraries. It\u2019s the only method that can almost automatically facilitate the entire process\u2014from saving the still image to deleting the original photo\u2014without additional setup and much user interaction. This is perfect for going through dozens of Live Photos quickly.<\/p>\r\n

For this specific task, we\u2019ll be using Clever Cleaner: AI Cleanup App<\/a>. There are several on the App Store you can choose from, but Clever Cleaner is completely free and ad-free, so we highly recommend it if you want to follow along.<\/div>\r\n

Most importantly, it has an excellent Live Photo \u201ccompressor.\u201d It can instantly remove Live from ALL the photos on your iPhone at once (but you can also select individual or multiple photos if you want to have more control over the process).<\/p>\r\n

Here\u2019s how to use the Live Photos compressor to delete the Live part of a photo on your iPhone:<\/b><\/p>\r\n

    \r\n\t
  1. Download and install Clever Cleaner: AI Cleanup App<\/a> from the App Store.<\/li>\r\n\t
  2. Open the Clever Cleaner app and tap Manage access<\/b>.\"Photo<\/li>\r\n\t
  3. In the dialog menu, tap Allow Full Access<\/b>. Then, wait for Clever Cleaner to finish scanning your files.<\/li>\r\n\t
  4. After the scan is complete, tap Lives<\/b> in the bottom menu and tap any photo you want to compress.\"Scan<\/li>\r\n\t
  5. Select the Live photos you want to compress. Alternatively, you can tap the Select All<\/b> button to apply compression to all of your Live photos at once.<\/li>\r\n\t
  6. In the dialog that appears, you can tap Delete<\/b> to send the photo directly to the Recently Deleted folder or Keep in Trash<\/b> to continue storing it in Clever Cleaner\u2019s own Trash folder.<\/li>\r\n\t
  7. \"SelectingIf you opted to keep the photos in the app\u2019s Trash folder, a popup will appear at the bottom of your screen (tap it to open the folder). In the Trash folder, use the slider to confirm the deletion of the Live version of your photos.<\/li>\r\n\t
  8. Finally, a confirmation pop-up will appear. Tap Delete<\/b> to confirm the action.\"Delete<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n

    Even if you choose to delete the original Live Photos, they will remain in the Recently Deleted album in the Photos app for 30 days (then are deleted). This is a native iOS \u201csafety net\u201d that helps prevent unwanted permanent data loss\u2013but that also means that any deleted photos will continue taking up storage space until you delete them from the Recently Deleted album as well.<\/p>\r\n

    Clever Cleaner also has other tools that can help you efficiently tidy up your photo library clutter, like:<\/b><\/p>\r\n