


The "live" photo actually includes the regular photo file along with a few second video file, taking up more space on the recipients phone, using more data to send, and taking a little longer to send. Reasons to not include the Live Photo portion of a photo in Messages: Most likely, you don't realize that you're sending live photos when you send iMessage photos, but it's worth taking a second to consider the choice, and then set your iPhone settings appropriately. If I have "Live Photos" (the photos with a few seconds of video included, so they animate) turned on, I feel a little strange snapping and sending photos in Messages, because I don't really want to include a few seconds of useless (or possibly embarrassing) sound.

Taking photos and sending them via iMessage directly in the Messages app has become a lot easier (and therefore a lot more common) in iOS 10 and iOS 11.
