How to Transfer Live Photos from iPhone to PC Truly

What is "Live Photos"?

Live Photos is an iPhone camera tech that bring movement to your photos.  You can shoot 1.5 seconds of video before and after the shutter is released. That is 3 seconds of video, and is available on iPhone 6s and later. 

The photo image is saved as a video, and it is fun to tap and move. It is very convenient because it can be set as wallpaper and lock screen. 

Can you transfer Live Photos from iPhone to PC?

The effect of Live Photos is composed by combining .jpg, and .mp4 files. It can occupy much storage on your iPhone. If you take Live Photos a lot, you will find your iPhone storage full quickly. So you will want to backup some Live Photos on your computer. Then you can delete them to free up storage space.

Besides, if you love long-exposure pictures, you can save your Love Photos to computer to create a stunning long-exposure photo by Photoshop, Lightroom, or something like that.

However, you may ever try some way to send your live photos but find the saved photos are still. The because you didn't transfer the mov files. Don't worry,  you can refer to the next part to know the detailed of how to save Live photos with 3 common methods. Just choose one according to your needs.

Method 1. Free way to put live photos from iPhone to PC or external drive truly

To easily save your photos, you can rely on FoneTool. The iPhone-to-Windows PC transfer app is your best choice.

★Highlights:

 Easily transfer Live Photos (including MOV files) from iPhone to a computer and vice versa.

 Preview and select iPhone files (photos, videos, music, contacts, etc.) as you like.

 Fast transfer speed saves lots of time and 100 photos can be moved within seconds.

 All data will be kept in its original quality.

 It works well with various iOS devices and versions including the latest iPhone 15 and iOS 17.

 You can flexibly specify the location on PC or external drive to save the files.

Now we will show you how to import live photos from iPhone to PC with FoneTool. First, download and install FoneTool on your computer for free.

Step 1. Connect your iPhone to your computer with a USB cable. Then tap Trust on your iPhone.

Step 2. On the home screen, click the "Phone Transfer" on the main interface. Choose the "iPhone to PC". Click "Get Started".

Note: Also, you can click "Photos Backup" to save your live photos as a backup on your PC.

Step 3. Check the Photos icon to choose the specific items to transfer, click OK to continue. 

Step 4.  You can click the Transfer Settings to change the storage location.Then click Start Transfer to save your live photos.

When the transfer process is completed, all your photos will be saved in the chosen location.

Method 2. Save live photos to computer with iCloud

As you know, when you turn on "iCloud Photo Library" on iPhone, a large number of photos taken by iPhone would be automatically uploaded to iCloud and can be downloaded and saved on your computer. Because it supports Live Photos, you can save Live Photos to your computer using iCloud.

However, keep in mind that iCloud has a maximum storage period of 30 days and a maximum of 1000 copies. And please make sure there is enough free space on your iCloud storage. If your iCloud storage is full, iCloud will fail to save photos to a computer.

Step 1. iPhone “Settings”> Apple ID> “iCloud”> “Photos” and turn on iCloud Photo Library. Then all photos and videos including Live Photos will be uploaded to iCloud.

Step 2. Access “icloud.com” on your PC browser, enter the same Apple ID as your iPhone and log in.

Step 3. Select the "Photos" icon, find the Live Photos you want to backup to your computer, and download the two files, JPG and MOV, to your computer. Then you complete importing Live Photos to PC with iCloud.

You can upload iPhone Live Photos to iCloud Photos, then import them to your computer and save them.

Note: If there are lots of live photos that needed to be downloaded to your Windows PC, you can also use the professional iCloud manager - FoneTool to help you speed up the process.

Method 3. Save Live Photos to PC with File Explorer

Live Photos can be imported to a computer on File Explorer.

However, you need to install iTunes on your PC. Since photo data is arranged in a row, it is difficult to find a large number of photos. Also, it is not recommended because there are frequent errors that can't import photos from iPhone to PC when using this method.

Step 1. Connect iPhone to PC with a lightning cable. Then you will see the iPhone icon in Windows File Explorer.

Step 2. Click iPhone> Internal Storage> DCIM> 100APPLE. When you enter the folder 100APPLE, you can see the JPG and MOV files and also Live Photos.

Step 3. Find the Live Photos you want to save on your computer and copy the two files JPG and MOV to your computer. Then, backing up Live Photos to PC is completed.

Conclusion

This is how to transfer Live Photos from iPhone to PC. You can perform it with File Explorer, iCloud, and FoneTool.  By contrast, FoneTool can do this in a fast and efficient way without missing any images. It's useful software to protect your iPhone from data loss disasters. Besides, this tool can also help you to make a full iPhone backup on the computer.