Convert any video into an Apple Live Photo on macOS. No Xcode required.
- Full AVKit player with standard controls
- Thumbnail strip timeline — drag yellow handles to set start/end, drag red marker to pick cover frame
- Live preview bubble floats above the cover marker while dragging
- Loop Preview — loops within the selected clip range; updates in real time as you adjust handles
- Seek to Cover — jumps playhead to the current cover frame position
- Drag handles or use precision sliders; total / clip duration shown
- Platform presets: 小红书 XHS (≤2.8 s, H.264 720p SDR) and 抖音 automatically fill recommended values
- Auto Enhance — one checkbox runs
CIImage.autoAdjustmentFilters()(the same API as Apple Photos' magic wand) on the cover frame, derives color adjustments, and applies them uniformly to every video frame — no flicker - 10 manual sliders (expand the Color Grade panel): Exposure / Contrast / Brightness / Highlights / Shadows / Saturation / Vibrance / Sharpness / Warmth / Tint
- Loop Preview reflects color grade in real time via
AVPlayerItem.videoComposition - Color grade applied to both the cover HEIC and the exported MOV
- Auto Enhance resets when you change the clip selection (stale analysis warning)
- Export HDR checkbox appears automatically when an HLG/PQ source is detected
- HDR path: HEVC +
dynamicRangePolicy = .matchSourceonAVAssetImageGenerator; HEIC written withkCGImageDestinationOptimizeColorForSharing = false
| Setting | Options |
|---|---|
| Codec | H.264 / HEVC (H.265, default) |
| Resolution | 720p / 1080p / 4K / Source |
| Quality | Low / High / Source (passthrough) |
| Frame Rate | 24 / 30 / 60 / Source |
| Audio | Keep / Mute |
| HDR | On / Off (SDR sources: N/A) |
- Drag multiple files into the sidebar to build a batch list
- Click to switch between files; settings persist across switches
- Right-click → Remove from List or Move to Trash;
⌘⌫to trash the selected file
- Default: Chinese (中文) — click EN in the top bar to switch to English; preference persists
- Save to Photos — imports the Live Photo pair directly into Photos.app via
PHPhotoLibrary - Create Live Photo — saves HEIC + MOV files to any folder you choose
Apple Live Photos are a HEIC image + MOV video pair sharing a Content Identifier UUID:
| File | Key | Value |
|---|---|---|
| HEIC | kCGImagePropertyMakerAppleDictionary["17"] |
UUID string |
| MOV | com.apple.quicktime.content.identifier |
same UUID |
| MOV | com.apple.quicktime.still-image-time |
cover frame offset (seconds, float32) |
LivePhotoMaker writes all metadata natively via CoreGraphics + AVFoundation — no exiftool required.
Make Key Photo in iOS Photos requires
still-image-timeto be the actual time offset of the cover frame within the trimmed clip, not the sentinel value-1.
- macOS 13.0+ (HDR cover frame requires macOS 15+)
- Apple Silicon (arm64)
- Xcode Command Line Tools
xcode-select --install- Download
LivePhotoMaker.dmgfrom Releases - Open the DMG → drag LivePhotoMaker.app to Applications
System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway, or:
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/LivePhotoMaker.appgit clone https://github.com/ylongw/live-photo-maker.git
cd live-photo-maker
./build.sh
open LivePhotoMaker.appNo Xcode, no Swift Package Manager, no dependencies.
MIT