My application of iPhone photos slowly slipped beyond being fun to scroll. Voyages, pet videos, bursts and a mountain of screenshots continued to chew the storage until the “almost complete iPhone storage alert” becomes a routine. I wanted a victory that I could see right away without paying for another application or more iCloud space. It was like playing the free storage lottery.
The Photos Application ended up being the corrective that I was looking for. On iOS 16 or more recent, a duplicate album brings together identical photos so that you can merge them or delete them by lots. I opened it out of curiosity and I erased dozens of looks from the same vacation album. The storage bar was moving. The backups felt faster. The navigation on the camera roll stopped in the way.
If your iPhone is filled with copies of the same photo, start. Open the photos, press the albums, find duplicates under public services, then merger or delete. The deletion of double photos quickly releases space and transforms cleaning into a simple and targeted task that also surfaces the memories you have forgotten that you have recorded.
To find out more, see each new feature that we expect from Apple to fall with iOS 26 this fall.
Delete double photos and videos to get more storage on your iPhone.
Apple presented its “Duplicate Detection” functionality in 2022 and it operates as its name suggests. The tool uses an AI available to identify the identical images and aggregate them in an album easy to find in the photo application. Apple says that the iPhone classifies duplicates not only as exact copies but also as photos that seem to be the same but have unique resolutions, file formats or other slight differences. This includes low-resolution versions that you may have saved to share on social networks or even bursts of almost identical plans taken at the same time.
Here is how to use the integrated iPhone tool to release the storage space:
1 and 1 Open it Photos Application on your iPhone.
2 Scroll down Public services section and type Lining. This is where you can display all the double photos on your iPhone and delete them, individually or at the same time.
3 and 3 If you want to delete all duplicates at a time, press the Select button, then press Select All. You can also delete them in groups of two or more: type Select In the upper right corner, then press the Select Button to the right of the pairs. Then press Merge [number] To merge all the double photos that your iPhone detects and send them to the trash.
4 If you want to delete duplicates individually, press the Merge button that appears next to each pair. Then type Merge [number] Copies To remove duplicates. Go down and repeat this step for all the identical photos you want to delete.
The merger retains the best version of the photo in your library. Duplicates are moved to the Recently Deleted album.
If you have found this iOS functionality useful, see the CNET cheat sheet for iOS 18. For more advice on how to save space, read our full list of tips to erase the storage of your iPhone.
