How to Convert iPhone Live Photos to GIFs with Google Motion Stills

Apple introduced “Live Photos” as a flagship feature with the iPhone 6s and we were pretty impressed with the company’s implementation of dynamic pictures. While live photos are indeed very cool, they can’t really be shared unless you convert them to GIFs. The good news is, Google has just released a cool new app dubbed Motion Stills, which converts iPhone’s live photos to GIFs. Moreover, the app also lets you smooth out any shakiness from your live photos. Along with GIF conversion, the app also lets you create a movie by combining multiple live photos. Pretty cool, right?

So, if you own an iPhone 6s, 6s Plus or SE,  here’s how you can convert Live Photos to GIFs with Google Motion Stills:

Convert Live Photos to GIFs or Video

1. Firstly, you will have to install the Motion Stills app from the App Store. When you first open the app, you will be welcomed with a cool GIF image, after which you will see slides showcasing features of the app.

2. Once done, the app will prompt you to grant it permissions to access your photos. Once you grant the permission, the app will open up with all your live photos in tow.

3. You can then simply tap on a live photo to get the GIF and share it. In the GIF sharing page, you can tap on the Motion Stills icon at the bottom left to stabilize a live photo. You can also mute the picture here or go back via the drop-down button at the bottom right.

Note: If the Motion Stills icon is “unlocked”, the image is already stabilized. 

4. To share an image, you can simply tap on the share button, which will show you options to “Send GIF” and “Share Clip“, which shares the live photo as a small video.

Combine Multiple Live Photos to Create a Movie

1. In the home page of the app, you can right swipe a live photo to create a new movie or add images to a movie. You can also left swipe on an image to hide it from the app.

2. Once you have added the live photos you want in the movie, you can simply click on the play button to see the movie. If you don’t like a particular picture in the movie, you can simply swipe up the picture from the bottom bar to remove it. You can hit the cross button at the top left to go back and add more live photos to the movie.

3. If you are content with the movie you have just created, you can use the share button to “Upload to YouTube” or simply “Share video“.

Note: The video created from Motion Stills is in the MOV format.

Check out Motion Stills’ Settings

To go to the Settings page of the Motion Stills app, you can swipe down from the top to bring down the Motion Stills welcome view with a settings cog icon. You can just click on the icon to check various app settings.

While there aren’t a lot of options to play with, you can choose the GIF quality to be large (640×480), medium (480×360) or small (320×240). You can also choose the speed at which the clips are repeated in a GIF. Last but not the least, you can turn off Motion Stills watermark on created GIFs.

SEE ALSO: How To Get iPhone’s Live Photos Feature on Android

Now convert all your Live Photos to GIFs

The Motion Stills app should make life for iPhone 6s & SE users a lot easier, considering we’ve always wanted to share Live Photos on various social media platforms but there wasn’t a way to do so. We also like the fact that Motion Stills also lets you create movies out of various Live Photos. Moreover, you can use the app to view all the live photos in play mode, unlike in the Photos app, where you only see a small clip and you have to use 3D touch to play the full clip.

Overall, we are quite impressed with the Motion Stills app and it’s no surprise, considering it’s from Google. Android fans shouldn’t feel sad though, as we can surely expect Google to bring this feature on its own platform soon. So, what are you waiting for? Go ahead and install the Motion Stills now. Don’t forget to let us know your experience with the app in the comments section below.