Can't save videos from files to photos anymore

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Level 1

4 points

Can't save videos from files to photos anymore

I want to save a video from my Google Drive to my Photos App.

In Google Drive you can download the video. It says "Saving to Photos". But once the snackbar menu pops up, there is no option to save it to the Photos App.

This behavior was like that for since forever. But there was an update some time ago, with that you were able to save the video directly to the Photos App. But since this doesn't work anymore, I went back to the old way.

First saving it to the files app. Open the video in the files app and save it to Photos App from there. But here the same problem. There is no option to save it to Photos. It looks like apple removed that in one the last 3 iOS updates.

If so. Why? If not. What am I doing wrong?

iPhone 12, iOS 18

Posted on Jan 8, 2025 09:33 AM

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Answer 1

lilalunex Author

Level 1

4 points

Jan 10, 2025 08:34 AM in response to Matti Haveri

Thank you for this new insight.

I don't use Google Photos. When I look up the Drive Settings, it even says next to Google Photos "try".

Is there a way to change this setting in google drive, if it's because of that?

The video:

was recorded on an Insta360 Go3
is an MP4 file
was encodec through Adobe Media Encoder (to save up storage)
saved to my google Drive
I go the file in google drive, tried "export to" and "download"
save it in files (here is no photos option)
clicking get info in files Apps: It's an mp4 file with codec: AVC Coding

This is the same workflow I always used. Which stopped working just recently.

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Answer 2

Jan 9, 2025 11:41 PM in response to lilalunex

Have the movies been routed through Google Photos to Google Drive?

Google Photos has "Original quality" and "Storage saver" settings. The latter option was recently "updated" to convert downloaded movies to Google's VP9 codec which is incompatible with iOS/iPadOS/macOS.

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Answer 3

Jan 10, 2025 09:28 AM in response to lilalunex

I just tested this and saving a movie from Files to Photos works OK in latest iPadOS.

MediaInfo or Invisor (those are Mac apps) can give all movie details that might be incompatible with native Apple's apps.

But AVC H.264 should be OK (there are some Sony or GoPro camera models or movie modes that that might have some weird incompatibilities, though).

In HEVC H.265 there are also some incompatible details like Codec ID hev1 instead hvc1.

Audio codecs like Opus instead vanilla AAC might also matter.

But do all movies fail? Do images succeed?

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Answer 4

lilalunex Author

Level 1

4 points

Jan 10, 2025 02:54 PM in response to Matti Haveri

If I click download on an image, it works.

So another thing which was new since this problem occurs: New Version of Adobe Media Encoder. I guess the default settings of that are different. If my case is so unique.

I don't have the camera anymore and not the videos in not encoded version. So no option to test it.

So yeah. I can work with that. I do have a Windows PC with which I can still work with the files. Thanks!

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