Batch Convert Live Photos (mov) to JPEG

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Batch Convert Live Photos (mov) to JPEG

I was with a group of people conducting due diligence on a large property and was assigned the task of consolidating the photos for use across the company. The photos were downloaded and organized to a shared drive.

Some of our party were taking HEIC photos which I've been able to convert to JPG. Others had "live photos" on, which has turned out to be a problem. MOV files are completely unusable for our situation. I have literally hundreds of these files that I need to convert to JPG. I'm not looking for the very best frame. I just need to get an image out of each one of these .mov files without spending a week converting them.

Any ideas?

iMac 27″ 5K, macOS 13.2

Posted on Apr 2, 2023 09:51 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

léonie

Level 10

199,927 points

Apr 2, 2023 06:43 PM in response to MonkeyPuck

A Live Photo is a pair of a high resolution still frame and a short video clip.

It will depend on the Settings > Camera > Formats on the iPhone, if the pair will be JPEG & mp4 or HEIC and MOV.

The best way to turn the Live Photos into into still frames is to export them from Photos on a Mac with "File > Export > Export unmodified original" and then simply the exported video (MOV or MP4) from the exported Live Photo pairs and only keep the still frames. You may need to convert the HEIC files with the still high resolution still frame to JPEGs. On a Mac the Preview.app can be used to convert the HEIC files to JPEGs with File > Export.

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Answer 2

Apr 2, 2023 10:07 AM in response to flexmarketman

On the left hand side of Photos select Live Photos under the Media Types Album. Then select all the photos you want to export, go to File > Export and select JPEG in the pop up window. That said, I'm not 100% sure that will work. My Live Photos don't show up as .mov files.

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Answer 3

Apr 2, 2023 01:48 PM in response to MonkeyPuck

Thanks. I finally figured it out. The person had exported it and gave me both the MOV and JPEG files. I just had to delete several hundred MOV files.

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Answer 4

Apr 2, 2023 10:29 AM in response to MonkeyPuck

Thanks. Unfortunately, that doesn't work.

These Live Photos were placed on a shared drive. When I import them to my Photos app, it treats them as a movie. They show up as Media Type "Vidoes" and Photos will not allow me to export a JPEG from that file.

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Answer 5

Apr 2, 2023 10:38 AM in response to flexmarketman

That's weird. Live Photos are saved as a JPEG by the phone and the only way I have seen them as a .mov file is when someone manual converts them to video. No chance you know who shot the photos and can get the original files?

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Batch Convert Live Photos (mov) to JPEG

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