If you’re tired of your iPhone constantly reminding you that storage is running low, you’re not alone. A major reason for this headache is usually the Photos app, where beautiful memories sit alongside redundant snapshots—like receipts, parking space numbers, and countless selfies of your pets. Thankfully, there’s no need to cough up extra cash for more iCloud storage. Instead, there’s an incredibly simple solution lurking right in your iPhone, especially if you’re running iOS 16 or later.
Say hello to the “Duplicates” album in your Photos app. This nifty feature identifies identical and near-identical shots, allowing you to clean up your library with minimal effort.
Unlocking Storage with Duplicate Detection
Introduced in 2022, Apple’s “duplicate detection” feature intelligently utilizes on-device AI to recognize and group identical images into an easily accessible album. This means it doesn’t just find exact copies; it also detects photos that look very similar but vary in resolution, file format, or other minor differences. So whether you saved low-res versions for social media or captured a burst of nearly identical shots, your iPhone has already done the hard work for you.
Using this built-in tool to recover precious storage space is straightforward:
1. Open the Photos app on your iPhone.
2. For users on iOS 16, tap the Collections button. If you’re using an earlier version, just skip to the next step.
3. Scroll down to the Utilities section and tap Duplicates. Here’s where you can find all duplicate photos on your device, enabling you to delete them individually or all at once.
4. To delete all duplicates in one go, tap the Select button, then choose Select All. You can also remove them in smaller groups by selecting the individual pairs.
5. Finally, tap Merge [number] to combine all detected duplicates and move them to the trash. If you prefer to handle duplicates one at a time, simply tap the Merge button next to each photo pair and then confirm the number of copies you wish to delete.
Merging keeps the best version of each photo while moving the duplicates to the Recently Deleted album, giving you the assurance that nothing important is lost in the process.
As you navigate this feature, keep an eye on how much storage you free up. It’s astounding to see just how much clutter can accumulate in your photo library. This update offers a practical day-to-day improvement for users, simplifying what used to be a tedious and time-consuming chore.