How to loop a video on iPhone

The Photos app replays videos automatically, and iOS 18.2 added a setting to turn that behaviour off. If your clips stop at the end, Loop Videos has probably been switched off; turn it back on in the account menu. The switch applies to every video in your library, not to one clip.

• There is no control for repeating just a section, such as a ten-second stretch in the middle. The closest you can get inside Photos is to tap Edit, drag the ends of the frame viewer to the part you want, tap Done and choose Save Video as New Clip, which keeps the full original too.
• There is no repeat count. The clip loops until you stop it, and the file on your iPhone still lasts as long as it always did.
• Looping is a playback setting on your device. Sharing the video from Photos sends the original, which plays once in Messages, WhatsApp or anywhere else.
• You cannot smooth the join. If the last frame looks very different from the first, you will see a jump every time it restarts.

If you want to drill one short part, for a dance step or a guitar riff, a file that contains only that part repeated is easier to work with. See how to loop part of a video.

A Live Photo records 1.5 seconds before and after the moment you take the picture. Photos can play that movement as a continuous loop instead of a short burst when you press on it.

Add the Loop effect

• Open the Live Photo in the Photos app.
• Tap Live in the top-left corner.
• Choose Loop. Apple describes it as repeating the action in a continuous looping video. The menu also lists Bounce and Long Exposure; choose Live to go back to the normal playback.

Loop works best when the camera was still and something moved inside the frame: water, a candle, a child on a swing. If you walked or turned while taking the photo, the restart is obvious. Apple also notes that editing a Live Photo in another app can remove the effects you applied.

Turn a Live Photo into a video

To use the moment outside Photos, open the Live Photo, tap the More button in the top-right corner and tap Save as Video. That gives you a short ordinary video in your library. Apple does not say that the Loop effect carries over, so treat the saved clip as a single pass and loop it with one of the methods below if you need it to repeat.

When the loop has to survive being sent, posted or played on another screen, the repetitions must be inside the file. On iPhone the built-in route is iMovie, Apple’s free editor.

• Open iMovie, tap Start New Project, then Movie. Select the clip and tap Create Movie.
• Tap the clip in the timeline, tap the Actions button and tap Duplicate. The copy appears straight after the original; repeat until you have enough passes.
• Tap the small icon between each pair of clips and choose None, so one pass cuts straight into the next instead of fading.
• Tap Done, tap the Share button at the bottom of the screen, then Share Video and Save Video to put the result in your photo library.

Duplicating is fine for three or four repeats. For a ten-minute or hour-long file it means a very long timeline, and iMovie re-encodes the whole movie when it saves. The iMovie looping guide covers the Mac version and the details of transitions.

• Watching on your own iPhone: leave Loop Videos on in Photos. Nothing new is saved.
• A Live Photo you want to see moving: apply the Loop effect.
• A short clip to send that plays two or three times: duplicate it in iMovie.
• Many repeats, a set length, or a clean join: build the file in a browser tool, as described next.

Social apps such as Instagram and TikTok already replay short videos in their own players, so you rarely need to add repeats for them. What matters there is a join that does not jump, covered in the seamless loop guide.

loop.video runs in Safari on your iPhone. The video is read on the phone and never uploaded, there is no account and no watermark, and the result goes back into Photos.

• Tap Choose video and pick the clip from your library.
• Under Repeat, choose Number of times for a set count, or Length for a total such as 1 min or 10 min.
• If the restart jumps, tap Find the best loop to choose start and end frames that match, or pick Crossfade so the end dissolves into the start.
• Tap Export video, then Share or save to Photos when “Your video is ready” appears.

It has limits worth knowing. Exports stop at three hours, most settings re-encode the video, and it cannot change speed or play a clip backwards. On iPhone it can also make a looping GIF, which holds one pass of up to 30 seconds with no sound; Safari cannot export WebP. For long files such as a one-hour loop, a computer is often more comfortable than a phone.