Add Android Motion Photo export for Live Photos

[ChrisVrekos]

Summary

I’d like Memories to support exporting Live Photos as Android/Google Motion Photo JPEGs.

Memories already detects Live Photos and can download the still image and video part separately. This feature would add a single export option that combines them into one Android-compatible Motion Photo .jpg.

Use case

This helps users who want to move Live Photos from Apple/iCloud/Nextcloud workflows into Android or Google Photos workflows.

Instead of downloading:

• IMG_1234.HEIC or IMG_1234.JPG
• IMG_1234.MOV

the user could download:

• IMG_1234MP.jpg

which Android/Google Photos can recognize as a Motion Photo.

Proposed UI

Add a Download Motion Photo action directly below the existing Download Video action in the Memories viewer for Live Photos.

Proposed behavior

• JPEG stills are used directly.
• HEIC/HEIF stills are converted to JPEG before export.
• MOV/QuickTime live videos are transcoded to MP4 using the existing Memories video transcoding/go-vod path.
• Existing embedded MP4 Motion Photos are reused when possible.
• If an MP4 cannot be produced, the export should fail rather than generate a non-compliant file.

Format

The output follows Android’s Motion Photo format:

https://developer.android.com/media/platform/motion-photo-format

The generated JPEG contains:

• XMP APP1 metadata with Camera:MotionPhoto="1"
• Camera:MotionPhotoVersion="1"
• Camera:MotionPhotoPresentationTimestampUs
• Container:Directory
• primary image/jpeg item
• trailing video/mp4 item with exact Item:Length
• MP4 bytes appended after the JPEG image

Prototype

I have a working prototype patch against Memories 8.1.0.

It adds:

• a small MotionPhotoController
• a OCA\Memories\Service\MotionPhoto service for export assembly
• a viewer action under Download Video
• HEIC/HEIF-to-JPEG conversion through Imagick
• MOV-to-MP4 conversion through existing go-vod behavior

I tested it with an iPhone Live Photo pair:

• source still: .jpg
• source video: .mov
• output: Android Motion Photo .jpg
• verified XMP fields and exact trailing MP4 byte length/hash

Happy to open a PR if this is something the project would consider .
I would love it if somebody could help me with a way to test the code as it is my 1st time recommending a feature on anything and writing code for it.

Questions for maintainers:

• Would this fit Memories as a built-in export action?
• Should it be behind a config option?
• Is Service\MotionPhoto the right place structurally, or would you prefer another service split?
• Should HEIC conversion rely on Imagick, previews, or another existing Memories path?
• Should their be a button when doing a multi-select of pictures to export them as motion pictures ?

[ChrisVrekos]

I just finished a working example, forked the repository, and published it on my profile.
(https://github.com/ChrisVrekos/memories/tree/motion-photo-export)
I tested it in a GitHub Codespace using a folder federated from my own Nextcloud instance, and it works as expected. Exporting iPhone Live Photos takes some time because the .MOV video needs to be transcoded to MP4 before being embedded in the Motion Photo JPEG.

What I am not sure of is if this button will appear in the Android app and work, as I don't know how the Android app is implemented. If somebody could confirm and explain to me it would be helpful.

Batch export of multiple Live Photos would also be useful. I plan to work on that next and add it in a follow-up commit to the fork.

[ChrisVrekos]

Update: the prototype is now complete and available in my fork.

It adds:

• Download Motion Photo in the viewer for Live Photos.
• Android/Google-compatible Motion Photo JPEG export.
• JPEG passthrough and HEIC-to-JPEG conversion where required.
• MOV/QuickTime-to-MP4 transcoding through Memories/go-vod before embedding the video.
• Download Motion Photos for multi-selection.

The multi-select action is shown only when every selected item is a Live Photo. It creates one Motion Photo JPEG download for each selected item. In the Android wrapper, each export is queued through Android’s DownloadManager.

I also adjusted the export endpoint so the Android wrapper’s filename HEAD request does not trigger a redundant MOV-to-MP4 transcode before the actual download.

I tested single and batch exports in both the web UI and the native Memories Android wrapper, including files from a federated share folder. Everything is working as expected. MOV-based exports can take some time because of the required MP4 transcoding.

If this is something you would be interested in merging, I would be happy to open a pull request.

[ChrisVrekos]

@pulsejet Should i open a pull request for this or there is another way to go about implementing it in the next version ?