The short answer
For exact copies, open Photos › Utilities › Duplicates and tap Merge. Photos keeps the best version and moves the rest to Recently Deleted. It doesn't catch near-duplicates such as bursts and retakes, so for those, open Media Types › Bursts or use an app that groups similar photos.
There are two kinds of duplicate on an iPhone, and they need different tools.
- Exact duplicates: the same photo saved twice. You downloaded it from Messages and also saved it from WhatsApp, or imported it twice.
- Near-duplicates: different photos of the same moment. A burst, five attempts at a group shot, a sunset taken ten times. Each one is a separate photo, so nothing flags them as copies, and they're usually the bigger pile.
Exact duplicates: the built-in Duplicates album
Since iOS 16, the Photos app finds exact duplicates by itself.
- Open Photos.
- Find Utilities. It's under Collections, or under Albums on older versions of iOS.
- Open Duplicates. If you don't see it, Photos hasn't found any yet. It analyses the library in the background, which can take a while on a large library or after an import.
- Tap Merge next to a set. To do many at once, tap Select, choose the sets (or Select All), then Merge.
Merging keeps one photo, with the best quality and the details from all the copies, and moves the others to Recently Deleted. You have 30 days to change your mind.
Duplicates also catches the same photo at different sizes or formats, which is common with pictures sent through messaging apps.
Near-duplicates: bursts and retakes
The Duplicates album doesn't group shots that are merely similar. For those:
Bursts
Holding the shutter takes a burst: dozens of frames in a second or two, stacked as one photo.
- In Photos, open Media Types › Bursts.
- Open a burst and tap Select.
- Tick the frames you want, then tap Done.
- Choose Keep Only Favorites. The other frames go to Recently Deleted.
Retakes
Retakes are the hard part: ten separate photos of the same thing, taken a few seconds apart. Photos doesn't group them, so by hand you have to open each day, compare, and select the weaker ones.
Two things make it faster:
- Go by day or by month. Retakes sit next to each other in time, so they're easy to spot in a short stretch of the library.
- Pick the keeper first. Find the best shot, favourite it, then delete everything around it that shows the same moment.
Apps that find similar photos
A duplicate-finder app compares what's in each picture, not just the file, so it can group retakes and bursts together. When you choose one, check:
- Does it analyse photos on the iPhone, or upload them? Your camera roll is personal. An app that does the comparison on the phone never needs to send it anywhere. The App Store privacy label tells you what an app collects.
- Does it delete through Recently Deleted? It should, so a mistake can be undone.
- What does it cost after the trial? Many cleaner apps sell weekly subscriptions that add up fast. Read the price before you start a trial.