Save a frame
Saving the current frame to Photos, what the active layout bakes into the image, the add-only permission model, and the toast states.
The tray button in the HUD saves whatever is on screen to your photo library. In Standard it saves the raw program frame; with a layout active it saves exactly what you are looking at, chrome and all.
Saving
Tap the down-arrow-into-tray button — third from the left in the HUD row, between the speaker and the layout grid.
The same button appears in Preview from Photos or Files, where it sits directly after the house button.
Re-taps are ignored while a save is in flight.
What gets baked in
Two different results, depending on the active layout:
Standard saves the decoded frame at its full decoded resolution, with no overlay and no canvas resampling. That is the raw picture the encoder produced at your current Resolution Limit — the honest artifact for a color note.
Any other layout saves a composite at the screen's size and scale:
- A black canvas.
- The video, drawn into the layout's video rectangle, using the same fit-or-fill rule the live view applies — so a 16:9 source letterboxes inside a TikTok layout in the file exactly as it does on screen.
- The layout overlay on top: platform chrome, the caption and username, your profile photo, the engagement counts, and the safe-zone tint at its current color and opacity.
The overlay is rendered through the same code that draws the live view, so the slice and caption geometry can never drift between what you saw and what you saved.
Zoom and pan are not baked in. The saved image is the full frame placed in the layout, not your current zoomed viewport.
Never included: the HUD itself, the stats strip, the transport bar, the transmit-paused pill, and the iOS status bar.
The permission model
The app requests add-only access to your photo library, so the iOS prompt is the lighter "Allow PreviewMonitor to add to your photo library?" rather than a request to read everything you have.
Add-only means the app can write the frame and nothing else — it cannot read, browse, or delete your library.
The permission is requested the first time you save, not at launch. The purpose string reads:
PreviewMonitor saves the current frame (with any active layout overlay) to your photo library.
If you decline, the save fails and the failure toast appears. Nothing else in the app changes. To grant it later, go to Settings → PreviewMonitor → Photos.
This is a different permission from the one Preview from Photos or Files may ask for. That flow needs read access, and only when a chosen clip has to be pulled down from iCloud.
Toast states
A small toast appears in the middle of the screen. It is independent of the HUD, so it stays visible even if the controls auto-hide right after your tap.
| Toast | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Tray icon, Saving…, white | The composite is being rendered and written. |
| Green check, Saved to Photos | Written. A success haptic fires and the HUD button's glyph becomes a checkmark while the toast is up. |
| Orange triangle, No frame yet | Nothing has decoded — there is no picture to save. An error haptic fires. |
| Orange triangle, Couldn't save | Permission was denied, or the write itself failed. An error haptic fires. |
The button glyph swaps to a checkmark alongside the toast, so the confirmation is visible even if you are looking at the control rather than the center of the screen.
Saving… is replaced by whichever terminal state follows. The terminal toasts clear themselves after 1.6 seconds.
Local clips
Saving from Preview from Photos or Files works the same way, with two differences under the hood:
- The frame is pulled frame-accurately from the clip at the current playhead, with zero seek tolerance — so a saved still matches the frame you stepped to exactly.
- A still image saves itself, with the layout composited on top if one is active.
Where the files go
Straight into the main photo library as new assets, with no album of their own. They carry the capture date and nothing else — no location, no caption, no metadata about the sequence.
Last updated on
The stats HUD
Every row of the live metrics strip, the loss color thresholds, the one-way-delay trend arrows, and the copy format to send to support.
Preview from Photos or Files
Check a local video or photo against the social layouts with no computer, no network, and no subscription — plus the iCloud download path and its errors.