I thought I knew all my iPhone's camera features, but discovered this one trick that made editing photos so much easier

New collections layout in iOS 26 photos — (Image credit: Future)

I've been using iPhones for over a decade and I genuinely thought I knew every feature in Settings and the Camera app. Then I discovered you can copy edits from one photo and paste them onto others. It's a small feature, but it saves massive amounts of time if you're editing batches of photos with the same lighting, color, or crop adjustments.

I'm constantly astounded by how many useful iPhone features get tucked away where nobody finds them. Apple hides them in plain sight, just buried in menus waiting for someone to accidentally tap the right button. This copy and paste edits feature is exactly that.

Once you know it exists, you can't believe you ever edited photos without it. Here's how to use it.

How to copy edits from a photo

Open the Photos app and find a photo you've already edited the way you want it. Then tap the three dots icon (⋯) in the top-right corner of the screen.

Select "Copy Edits" from the menu that appears. You can optionally toggle off specific adjustments you don't want copied. Once you've selected what to copy, tap "Copy."

That's it. The edits are now saved and ready to paste onto other photos.

How to paste edits onto one or multiple photos

For a single photo: Open the photo you want to apply the edits to. Next, tap the three dots (⋯) in the top-right corner and select "Paste Edits." The adjustments apply instantly.

For multiple photos at once: From your photo library, tap "Select" in the top-right corner. Then tap on each photo you want to edit, or drag your finger across multiple photo thumbnails to select them all at once.

Once you've selected all the photos, tap the three dots (⋯) in the bottom-right corner and select "Paste Edits." All selected photos get the same adjustments applied simultaneously.

Do you have any great iPhone tips or tricks? Let me know in the comments!

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Kaycee is Tom's Guide's How-To Editor, known for tutorials that get straight to what works. She writes across phones, homes, TVs and everything in between — because life doesn't stick to categories and neither should good advice. She's spent years in content creation doing one thing really well: making complicated things click. Kaycee is also an award-winning poet and co-editor at Fox and Star Books.