IPhone – Cannot restore live photo back to camera roll

backupiphonephotosrestore

Since iPhone 6S, Apple introduced "live photo" for taking a picture with a short 3 second clips. With the 3D touch feature, the user can see the picture in motion, which is great for capturing kids activities, etc.

There are several photo backup solutions claiming they can backup live photos[1] [2] [3], but actually none of them seems to be able to restore to its original state.

What I mean is when backup take place, it upload both still image (JPEG) and motion clip (.MOV) to the server, but during restore, it's either only the JPEG got put back to camera roll or MOV also got put back to camera roll but as a separated file. The 3D touch functionality is completely broken after restore.

Does anyone has the same issue or know the internal for getting it to work with 3D touch again?

[1] https://9to5mac.com/2016/03/07/google-photos-live-photos-split-view-ipad-pro/

[2] https://www.photosync-app.com/photosync/en/newsarticle/photosync-31-for-ios-released.html

[3] https://forum.synology.com/enu/viewtopic.php?t=105395

Best Answer

I've been in touch with the Photosync support, and got it to work.

  • When you download the images from the phone, keep the original file names - can be configured in the settings.
  • Don't rename stuff on your machine, either.
  • Don't use the browser for uploading the photos - use the companion app.

    (That's where I went wrong. I used the browser for restoring; there isn't a hint anywhere that live photos will be messed up that way.)

I restored from a PC running Windows 7. Haven't tried it from a Mac yet.