Save Video Frame as Photo

As I mentioned in my WWDC post this summer, Apple added the ability to save a single frame out of a video. I had reason to do it for the first time today with some kid birthday videos, but had forgotten about it being added to iOS 27.

When you’re paused on a video, it’s in the … menu:

A slightly cropped iOS screenshot of a video of some pink object being 3D printed. The object is obscured by a Liquid Glass menu showing buttons for Copy, Duplicate, Hide plus menu items for Show in All Photos and Start Slideshow, submenus for Add To, Move To, and Adjust Info, and finally highlighted in a red round text, Save Video Frame as Photo
Yes, this is an in progress Jimothy

For a HEIC video you end up with a correctly timestamped HEIF image… but as I complained about in my original workaround post from 2024, three iOS versions ago, I would like all of the metadata. At least the time and location are kept, but for some reason the camera and lens information are not preserved:

A screen shot from iOS Photos showing image metadata: Monday • Oct 5, 2026 • 9:16 PM IMG_5064_still No camera information No lens information 8 MP • 2160 × 3840 • 632 KB

This means that the search autocomplete tags like “Apple iPhone 17 Pro” that match the video don’t match this, and there’s no larger category for stills extracted from video.

Definitely a welcome improvement but some weird limitations yet. And to whoever at Apple fought to get this added: thank you!

#apple #ios #photos #videoEditing