This is an independent app maintained by one person. I aim to reply within 2 business days; issues that need reproducing may take longer. English or Chinese is fine.
When reporting a problem, including these saves a round trip:
The app version (shown in Settings) and your iOS version;
Your device model (which iPhone or iPad);
Which destination you chose and which app you posted to — essential for "it doesn't move" issues;
What you did, what you expected, and what actually happened; a screenshot of the Check result helps if you have one.
1. Does it cost anything? What's free?
Making, editing, and saving one at a time is always free — to any destination, with no watermark, no ads, and no limits.
Always free
Vane Pro (one-time purchase)
Turn videos into Live Photos, re-edit existing ones
Vane Pro is a one-time purchase, not a subscription, and never renews. See the app for the price.
2. Restoring purchases and Family Sharing
Restore: go to Settings › Vane Pro and tap Restore Purchase, signed in to the App Store with the Apple Account you bought it with. This is also how you get it back after reinstalling or on a new iPhone or iPad.
Family Sharing: Vane Pro supports Family Sharing. If purchase sharing is on in your Apple Family Sharing settings, family members just open Vane on their own devices — tapping Restore Purchase once if needed.
"Waiting for approval" means the purchase needs a parent's approval (Apple's Ask to Buy); it unlocks automatically once approved.
Platforms treat Live Photos differently: some play them as they are, some accept only video, and some flatten them into a still. Vane asks where you're posting first and follows that platform's rules. Where Live Photos don't play, it makes the format the platform does accept — a video, a GIF, or an Android Motion Photo — and tells you why when you save.
Start with the platform rules page (Settings › Platform rules). Every rule lists its source and the date it was verified. If a platform has changed and I haven't caught up yet, please let me know.
Then use Check. Give it the Live Photo that won't move and it will tell you where the problem is. With Vane Pro, one-tap repair saves a fixed copy and leaves the original alone.
Make sure you picked the right destination when saving. The same video made for Photos and made for a given platform may not be the same kind of file.
Some platforms have their own upload switches or compression settings that affect the result; those live in the other app, outside Vane's reach.
4. My Android friends see a still photo
Live Photo is an Apple format, and most Android phones don't recognise it. Two ways around it:
Make an Android Motion Photo (Vane Pro): choose "Android (Motion Photo)" as the destination. It's a JPEG with the video inside, and it must be sent as a file — for example with AirDrop, Files, or as a file in Telegram. Sent as an ordinary photo, it will usually be flattened to a still.
Post straight to WhatsApp or Telegram: choose that app as the destination, and Vane makes a format it can play.
5. Where did my Live Photo go?
Once saved, results are in the Photos app, alongside the photos you took yourself.
By default they carry the source video's capture date (see question 9), so they sort to the day it was filmed, not today — scroll back in Recents or look by date.
A result made for a particular platform may be a video or a GIF rather than a Live Photo; look under the matching media type in Photos.
6. Why does it need photo access?
Vane only works with your photo library, and requests only "Add Photos Only" — never full library access:
Picking videos needs no permission: it uses the system photo picker, so only the items you select are handed to Vane.
Saving needs only "Add Photos Only": it can write to your library but cannot read it.
Editing an original needs no permission either: it goes through the Photos editing extension, where the Photos app hands the item to Vane and saves the result itself; edits can be reverted in Photos at any time. The library view inside the app is the system picker too.
Vane never requests full library access and never reads your library on its own. All processing happens on the device and nothing is uploaded — see section 4 of the Privacy Policy.
7. It doesn't move as a Lock Screen wallpaper
Whether a Lock Screen wallpaper moves is decided by iOS using undocumented checks, and ordinary Live Photos often stay still there.
Settings › Experiments has a Lock Screen version that tries to make a copy more likely to move on the Lock Screen.
It is experimental, off by default, and comes with no promises: the same file may behave differently on different devices and iOS versions.
The other experiments (frame interpolation, upscaling, and so on) are in the same spirit. If you try them, I'd like to hear how it went.
8. Can I start without opening the app?
Share extension: select a video in Photos or another app, tap Share, and choose Vane.
Photos editing extension: while editing a Live Photo in Photos, pick Vane from the extensions.
Shortcuts: "Make Live Photo" turns a video into a Live Photo using a destination's default rules and saves it to Photos — ready to drop into your own automations.
All of these process everything on the device too.
9. Do my Live Photos carry the location?
By default, yes. Vane writes the source video's capture date, place, and camera details into the new Live Photo, so it sorts to the day it was filmed and shows where it was taken. Information the source video doesn't have is never filled in or guessed.
To leave out the capture date and place, turn off "Keep original date & place" in Settings before saving. These details are written only into files in your own library and never sent to us — but they travel with the file, so keep that in mind before posting.
10. Where are projects stored? How do I erase everything?
Projects (drafts) are kept in Vane's own sandbox as a recipe plus a copy of the original, so you can keep editing later. Deleting a project in the project list deletes its copy too; nothing in Photos is touched.
Temporary files: Vane cleans up any leftovers each time it launches.
All projects and settings: delete the app.
Results already saved to Photos are managed by the Photos app and aren't removed when you delete Vane — delete them in Photos.
Purchase records belong to your Apple Account and are managed by Apple.
We hold none of your data, so there is nothing to ask us to delete. See the Privacy Policy.