The short answer
The Photos app doesn't sort out blurry photos, so you either look through a month at a time or use an app that measures sharpness. Look at Bursts and low-light shots first, because that's where most blurry photos come from. Hold still after you press the shutter to take fewer of them.
Every camera roll has them: the pocket shot, the photo of a moving child, the dim restaurant picture that looked fine on the small screen. The Photos app has albums for screenshots, selfies and bursts, but none for blurry photos, so they stay hidden among the good ones.
Two kinds of blur
- Out of focus. The camera focused on the wrong thing, or nothing. The whole picture is soft.
- Motion blur. The phone or the subject moved while the shutter was open. Edges smear in one direction, and parts of the photo can still look sharp in a thumbnail.
Motion blur is the harder one to spot. In the grid, a smeared photo can look fine. You only notice when you open it full-screen.
Finding them by hand
Start where the blur lives
- Media Types › Bursts. A burst of a moving subject is mostly blurry frames with one or two good ones.
- Evenings and indoor events. Low light means a slower shutter, and a slower shutter means motion blur.
- Anything with kids, pets or sport. The subject moves faster than the camera.
Use a short stretch of time
Open one month, or one event, and go through it full-screen. You'll judge sharpness much better at full size than in the grid. Zoom in on faces. A photo where the eyes are soft is almost always one you'd delete anyway.
Delete in batches
Favourite the keepers as you go. Then, back in the grid, tap Select and slide a finger across the blurry ones to delete them together. They go to Recently Deleted for 30 days.
Using an app
A photo cleaner can measure sharpness for every photo in the library and show you only the soft ones, which saves the full-screen hunt. Two things are worth checking:
- Does it catch motion blur? The common sharpness test only finds photos that are out of focus. A motion-blurred photo is still sharp across the direction of movement, so a simple check passes it as fine.
- Does it do the analysis on the phone? Measuring sharpness doesn't need a server, so there's no reason for your photos to leave the device.
Taking fewer blurry photos
- Hold still after the shutter. Keep the phone steady for a moment after you tap, especially in Night mode, where the iPhone shows a timer and needs you to wait it out.
- Tap to focus on the face or the thing you care about.
- Wipe the lens. A fingerprint on the lens gives everything a soft haze.
- Use bursts for moving subjects, then keep only the sharp frame.
- Lean on something in low light, like a wall, a table or your own elbow.