Bringing in your photos

Version 1 · Last updated 7 October 2026

Livo never copies, changes or deletes your photos. It keeps a small copy of each one, and your notes about it.

Import from Camera Roll

Open the Gallery, tap + at the top right, then Import from Camera Roll. Livo asks for permission to your Photos the first time, then brings in every photo and video, newest first. A big library takes a while; you can keep using Livo, and the progress shows under the Gallery header and in Organize › Activity.

Before it starts, Livo checks your free space: it warns if the import would leave under 2 GB, and will not start below 1 GB. If space runs out part way, the import pauses and keeps everything it has brought in; tap Resume in Activity, or start another import, to carry on.

Import from OneDrive

Sign in first (Settings › Data › OneDrive Accounts), choose which folders to import, then + › Import from OneDrive. Livo reads the photos where they are and keeps a small copy; the originals stay in OneDrive. Livo’s own folders in your OneDrive (Livo Backup, Livo Family Share, Livo Vault, Livo Keepsakes, Livo Sent) are never imported.

What Livo keeps

For every photo: its date, place, size and a small copy (800 × 800) that Livo uses when Photos is slow, when a photo is only in iCloud, or when it is gone from this phone. Your photos themselves stay in your Camera Roll or OneDrive. Deleting a photo in Livo never deletes it in Photos or OneDrive.

Tidying up

At the end of every import Livo looks for the same photo brought in twice (once from the Camera Roll and once from OneDrive, say) and keeps one record of it, with everything you had written on either copy. Your photos are not touched; only Livo’s own duplicate record goes. The message says “Livo also tidied up its library” when that happened.

The + badge

The + carries a number when there is something new to bring in: photos added to your Camera Roll since the last import, and things your family has shared. Each row shows its own count — “Import from Camera Roll (4)”, “Import from Family Share (3)”. The OneDrive number is counted only when you tap the refresh button left of the +, because counting it takes a moment. A photo Livo itself put in your Camera Roll (a scanned print, a family photo you added) is not counted as new.

Other ways photos arrive

Scan Prints for printed photos, Import from Family Share for what the family shared, and a Time Capsule someone sent you — each of these puts the photo in your Camera Roll and in Livo in one step.