Got AVIF working for iPhone photo libraries, photos end up about half the size with no visible quality loss
Hi all. I make HEVCut. Just shipped something I've been chasing for a long time: AVIF for your Photos library, running right on your iPhone, iPad or Mac.
Your iPhone already saves photos as HEIC, which is good. AVIF is the next step. The same photo ends up roughly half the size, and you cannot tell the difference looking at it. iOS and macOS both read AVIF directly, so the photos still open in Photos like normal, sync through iCloud, share, show in widgets, everything works the same. They just take up half the space.
As far as I can tell this is the first iPhone app that does it. Apple added the ability to read AVIF a couple of years back but never shipped a way to actually save photos in it, and no other app on the App Store had done it either.
A few things people usually want to know:
- You can run it on your whole library, a single album, or just specific photos. You see how much space you would save before anything actually happens.
- Originals stay on your device until you confirm the new versions look good. Nothing gets deleted behind your back.
- HDR photos stay HDR. The vivid look on newer iPhones is preserved.
- Everything runs on your device. No upload, no cloud, no account.
Numbers from my own library: 42,000 photos, started at 71 GB, ended at 36 GB. Dropped from the 200 GB iCloud plan back to 50 GB. The photos look identical to me at full screen.
If you have a big library and want to try it, the free tier processes enough that you can see your real savings before paying anything. Would love feedback, and if you try it, drop your before and after numbers in the comments.