Short answer
A Live Photo usually includes a still image resource and a short video resource, commonly HEIC plus MOV. AmberTime writes those resources to the backup destination instead of flattening the Live Photo into a single still image.
When this is useful
This matters if you want the motion and sound part of a Live Photo to remain available in your archive. A manual export or unsupported transfer workflow can sometimes leave only the still image, which makes the backup incomplete for users who care about the Live Photo moment.
AmberTime is designed for original-resource backup. It is useful for family libraries, creators, and anyone who wants an archive that keeps more than a compressed preview.
What AmberTime does
- Requests PhotoKit resources for each selected asset.
- Writes Live Photo photo and video resources where iOS exposes them.
- Keeps later runs incremental, so already backed-up Live Photos are skipped.
- Does not add a compression or conversion step to the backup pipeline.
- Can also keep album context through the archive album index.
Things to know
Live Photo resource availability depends on what iOS exposes to the app. If a Live Photo original is only in iCloud, AmberTime may need to download the full-resolution resources from Apple first when you choose to include iCloud-only items.
The resulting files are regular files on the drive, so the archive can be inspected outside AmberTime. AmberTime's archive browser can also use the album index to help browse backed-up items by album context.