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Delete Duplicate Photos On Your iPhone Easily

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Learn how to delete duplicate photos on an iPhone easily and keep your photo library tidy with tips to avoid future repeats.

Brief Summary of Deleting Duplicate Photos On An iPhone

Duplicate iPhone photos arise from bursts, edits, imports, transfers, and syncing across devices. The Photos app has an album called ‘Duplicates’ to find these easily. Tap Select and the Delete icon to remove unwanted copies. Avoid future duplicates by turning off burst mode, deleting unused edits right away, carefully managing imports, and syncing to just one main device.

Managing Duplicate Photos on Your iPhone

As you continuously take photos and videos with your iPhone camera, you may discover that you have a lot of duplicate shots cluttering up your photo library. Having many copies of the same image eating up your iCloud storage space can be annoying. Thankfully, Apple has made it easy to locate and remove duplicate photos on your iPhone.

How Duplicate Photos Get on Your iPhone

First, it can be helpful to understand how you ended up with duplicates in your photo library. Common ways include:

Burst mode shooting: When you hold down the shutter in the Camera app to take a rapid burst of shots, each image is saved individually even if they look basically the same.

Failed edits: If you edit a photo but save/export both the original and edited version, you’ll accumulate doubles.

Downloads and imports: When you import images from online, your computer, social media, or airdrop, the same photo could come from different sources.

Syncing: If you sync your iPhone photos across multiple devices like an iPad or Mac, duplicates may transfer over between them.

Finding Duplicate Photos

The Photos app has a handy built-in tool for flagging duplicates. Go to the Albums tab and scroll down until you see an album cleverly named ‘Duplicates’ with a duplication icon next to it. Tapping here will pool together all photos that the app has marked as possible duplicates for easy review and deletion.

You can also use Visual Similarities under Utilities in Photos Recognize duplicates based on image content similarity, not just file matching. However, it’s not fail proof if the photos were taken from slightly different angles or distances. Relying on the Duplicates album works best for most typical duplicate situations.

How To Cleaning Up the Duplicates

Once you’ve identified repeat offenders, it’s time for a clean up. Tap Select, then choose photos to remove by tapping on them (a checkmark appears). When finished, tap on the Delete icon. Alternatively, choose Select All if you just want a wholesale removal of duplicates.

An option to Merge will combine separate bursts instead of deleting to tidy things up. And you can always retrieve recently deleted photos if you change your mind or make a mistake.

How To Avoid Future Duplicates

To reduce duplicates appearing later on,

Turn off burst mode and only hold down the shutter when intentionally wanting a burst
Delete bad shots or unused edited versions immediately after import sessions
Manually manage imports instead of bulk camera roll dumps
Sync to only one or your main device instead of multiples

Following some basic photo editing and organisational best practices will keep your iPhone media library clean, consolidated, and duplicates free.

Final Verdict

Having duplicate photos on your iPhone can clutter up your photo library and eat up valuable storage space. Thankfully, the Photos app has handy built-in tools to easily track down these pesky doubles. By tapping into the ‘Duplicates’ album, you can review and delete copies with just a couple taps. Remember to be selective in only removing true duplicates rather than important photos.

Implementing habits like turning off burst mode, deleting unused edits, carefully managing imports, and syncing to only main devices will keep duplicates from accumulating again. Taking the time to regularly prune duplicate iPhone photos will lead to optimised storage and easier photo organisation.

Frequently Asked Questions on How To finding and deleting duplicate photos on an iPhone

Why do I have so many duplicate photos on my iPhone?

Common causes of duplicate iPhone photos include burst mode shooting, editing the same photo multiple times, importing images from different sources, and syncing your photos to multiple devices.

How do I find all the duplicate photos on my iPhone?

Go to the Albums tab in the Photos app and scroll down to the ‘Duplicates’ album. This contains all photos that the app has identified as possible duplicates based on file matching.

Is there an easy way to delete duplicate photos all at once?

Yes, once you have all the duplicates showing, you can tap Select -> Select All. Then tap Delete to remove all the duplicate photos in just a couple taps.

What if I want to review duplicates first before deleting?

Tap to select only certain photos rather than Select All. Go through and check mark only the doubles you confirm. This allows you to review first and be more selective in what duplicates get removed.

What happens when I delete duplicates – can I get them back?

Photos that you choose to delete get moved to the ‘Recently Deleted’ folder for up to 40 days before being permanently lost. So you can restore it if deleted by accident.

How do I make sure I don’t keep accumulating more duplicate photos?

Turn off burst mode shooting, delete unwanted edited versions after using them, manually manage imports rather than bulk transfers, and sync photos carefully across only the main devices you need.