How to safely remove duplicates from Apple Photos in iOS?

Apple added a new “Duplicates” album to “Photos” for iOS 16 and provided us with tools to save space by safely deleting unwanted duplicate images.

Maybe your finger slipped while using AirDrop to send pictures from Mac to iPhone. Or, in a completely random, completely fictional example, maybe you imported your old Aperture library three times at once. iOS 16 will now find every copy of a photo.

How to see photo copies

Open Photos on iOS 16

Tap Albums

Scroll down to “Duplicates”

Tap to open it

“Duplicates” is a new album that is included in the Title Tools section. Appears after import before hidden and last deleted.

Go to this album and all duplicate images will be displayed. At the bottom of the screen is a total, as well as a separate number for each duplicate.

If there are two identical images, Apple describes them as “2 duplicates”. It also displays small thumbnails of both, so you can click to look at them and see if Apple is right.

What to do with duplicate photos

You can just leave them there. If you’re short on space and can’t trust Apple’s algorithm, leave it alone.

Likewise, you can go to each row, view each sketch, and make a decision about each. To the right of where it says “2 duplicates” or whatever it is, you’ll find a “Merge” button.

Alternatively, you can select several of them to get rid of them. To do this, press the small Select button in the upper right corner.

Then tap each set of duplicates to select them, just as you would select any photo in any album. When you select some, the bottom line of the screen will change to “Merge 2 Copies”, “Merge 5 Copies”, etc.

When you’re ready, tap that text in the bottom row and the duplicates will disappear.

How to get rid of all duplicates at once

In the “Duplicate” album, click the small “Select” button.

Tap the small Select All button that appears in the upper left corner

Finally, click on the “Merge Duplicates” text at the bottom of the screen

What’s next

Apple still calls it a merge, although it’s more like removing a single duplicate. The reason is that it’s smarter than throwing away some images.

Instead, Apple will choose a higher quality image. Additionally, it will retrieve metadata from each image, such as tags, and place it in the saved image.

Ultimately, this means that iOS 16 removes some images. However, if you doubt that it has been done, you have about a month to find out.

Go to the recently deleted album. In iOS 16, this is blocked by Face ID, so it will take a while, but all your newly shredded images will be waiting for you.

They just won’t wait forever. You’ll still get 29 days before they’re automatically deleted, but if you choose to delete them early, you won’t be able to get them back.

It’s hard to let iOS delete photos, especially since duplicate photos might be the photos you care about the most. But this feature is very good at highlighting duplicates, and you have a chance to check before finally deleting anything.

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