How to post Live Photos to Facebook

By Rene Ritchie
last updated

Facebook now supports Live Photos, the Harry Potter-esque animated images created by the iPhones 6s and viewable by any iOS 9 device. With them, you can bring a smile, a crawl, a leap or bound, a grand slam or slam dunk, pirouette or pop, to life right in your feed. All you need to know is how!

Note: Live Photos in Facebook can currently only be animated on iOS 9 devices. Anyone viewing them in a web browser, in Facebook for Android, or on any other platform will only see the still photo.

How to post Live Photos to your Facebook feed

Posting a Live Photo to Facebook is straight forward, but you absolutely have to remember to enable the LIVE part during the posting process. (See step 5.)

  1. Launch Facebook from your Home screen.
  2. Tap Photo.
  3. Choose the Live Photo(s) you want to share (sadly, there's no indicator, so you'll need to remember or double-check in advance.)
  4. Tap Done.
  5. Tap on Live at the bottom right (if you don't, Facebook will only take the still photo).
  6. Edit, add a caption, and when you're ready, tap Post at the top right.


How to view a Live Photo in Facebook

Viewing a Live Photo in Facebook works the same as it does in the Photos app for iOS.

And remember, you have to tap through to the Facebook for iOS 9 app to see it!

Public Live Photo post to embed in iMore how-to!Posted by Rene Ritchie on Tuesday, December 22, 2015

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Rene Ritchie
Rene Ritchie
Contributor

Rene Ritchie is one of the most respected Apple analysts in the business, reaching a combined audience of over 40 million readers a month. His YouTube channel, Vector, has over 90 thousand subscribers and 14 million views and his podcasts, including Debug, have been downloaded over 20 million times. He also regularly co-hosts MacBreak Weekly for the TWiT network and co-hosted CES Live! and Talk Mobile. Based in Montreal, Rene is a former director of product marketing, web developer, and graphic designer. He's authored several books and appeared on numerous television and radio segments to discuss Apple and the technology industry. When not working, he likes to cook, grapple, and spend time with his friends and family.

7 Comments
  • Thank you so much had the best live photo of my grandson making a basketball a week ago and I couldn't get it to work. Can this work for Instagram yet?
  • Unfortunately Rene I believe this feature hasn't made its way across the entire county back here in the states. I am still unable to post Live Photos to Facebook.
  • The lack of 'Live' indicator in the photo browser is regrettable. The APIs exist for Facebook to fix that. I really don't see why web and Android users can't view Live Photos. You can view them in the Photos app on OS X by simply hovering your mouse. Surely Facebook could come up with an overlay or a button (or long-press in Android) or something to let users view the animation.
  • I'm not seeing the benefit of live photos. If you want a video, make a video! Lol
  • There are tons of great reasons to have Live Photos. I took a few pictures today of a beautiful valley stream and though the still is perfectly fine on its own it's great to activate the live feature and return to that place and see and hear the water running over the rocks and the birds flying through the trees. It's another tool for people that like to take pictures to capture a "moment" in time without switching to video mode. I have also captured some pretty awesome Live Photos of my kids, tigers at the zoo, friends at get-togethers, etc. To each his own! Sent from the iMore App
  • I was highly critical of LivePhoto when it was announced and said I'd never want it let alone need it. A few weeks ago I must have turned it on by accident and when I saw all the photos I've took since (many of my 6 month old baby girl) I actually 'got it'. They capture a moment a photo alone just doesn't do and I'll be leaving it on permantly now Sent from the iMore App
  • i still cant do live photos in FB