How to delete duplicate photos on iPhone

On iOS 16 and later, Photos finds exact duplicates for you: open Photos, go to Collections › Utilities › Duplicates and tap Merge. That covers identical copies. Bursts have their own tool, and near-identical retakes, such as five attempts at the same pose, have to be compared by eye or with an app that groups similar photos.

Merge exact duplicates in Photos

1. Open Photos and go to Collections (on iOS 18, scroll down below the library).
2. Under Utilities, tap Duplicates.
3. Tap Merge next to a set, then Merge [number] Items to confirm.

Photos keeps the version with the highest quality, combines details such as captions and keywords, and moves the rest to Recently Deleted. If you do not see the album, Photos may not have finished looking for duplicates yet, or it did not find any.

Keep only the best shots from a burst

1. Open Collections › Media Types › Bursts and tap a burst.
2. Tap Select, swipe through the frames and tick the ones you want to keep.
3. Tap Done and choose Keep Only your selection. The rest go to Recently Deleted.

Near-identical retakes: the part Photos leaves to you

The same scene taken three times seconds apart is not a duplicate to Photos, because the files are genuinely different. Finding them by hand means scrolling day by day and comparing. It works for a trip, not for a library of tens of thousands of photos.

What does DustFox do differently?

Duplicate Photos in DustFox groups both kinds at once. Each photo gets a 256-bit fingerprint from its DCT, computed on the device from a small grayscale copy, and photos with close fingerprints land in the same group. Byte-identical copies always come down to one.

Then a jury of measures picks the keeper: sharpness, exposure, resolution and file size. Each measure compares the shots in pairs and abstains when the difference is within its own noise. You can open any group, see how the vote went and choose a different keeper. Favorites and shots iOS won’t let you delete are never suggested.