This simple trick will free up your iPhone's storage — try it now

iPhone 14 Pro Max
(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

When you know how to remove duplicate photos on iPhone, not only will you free up some space on your phone, but you’ll make showing your vacation photos to friends much quicker, saving them from getting bored! 

Millions of us document our lives and adventures with our iPhone cameras, but it's easy to take and save the same frame multiple times, especially if you've just learnt how to use burst mode on iPhone. Luckily, however, it’s not hard to delete duplicates — another reason why the iPhone is one of the best phones out there. 

Note: The iPhone identifies and classifies duplicate images as two photos that are exact copies but have different metadata, or two photos that are mostly identical but have different resolutions or file formats.

How to remove duplicate photos on iPhone

  1. In Photos, tap Albums
  2. Scroll to Utilities and tap Duplicates 
  3. On a duplicate photo, tap Merge 

Read on to see detailed instructions for each step.


1. Open Photos and tap Albums.

(Image credit: Future)

 2. Scroll down to the updates section and tap Duplicates.

(Image credit: Future)

3. On a duplicate photo, tap Merge. Then tap Merge again to confirm. This will merge the highest-quality duplicates. 

(Image credit: Future)

Super simple, and now you have a camera roll to be proud of! If for some reason you want to restore a duplicate photo just check the recently deleted folder. 

If you’re a keen iPhone photographer, why not check out how to take RAW photos on iPhone or step up your selfie game with how to mirror the front camera on iPhone. Then you'll need to learn how to edit photos on iPhone and how to quickly undo edits on iPhone. If deleting photos isn't freeing up enough space, try 5 ways to free up storage space on your iPhone. Keep falling asleep to podcasts? Learn how to enable the iPhone built-in sleep timer.

Andy Sansom
Trainee Writer

Andy is Tom’s Guide’s Trainee Writer, which means that he currently writes about pretty much everything we cover. He has previously worked in copywriting and content writing both freelance and for a leading business magazine. His interests include gaming, music and sports- particularly Formula One, football and badminton. Andy’s degree is in Creative Writing and he enjoys writing his own screenplays and submitting them to competitions in an attempt to justify three years of studying.  

  • acidangel111
    Here is a solution . Defragment that piece of junk with a hacksaw . This allows for separation of individual platters , and cool designs .

    I prefer the star shape myself.
    :-D

    Seriously. Throw that iCANT device in the garbage .
    Reply