I gradually got passed the point when scrolling through my iPhone Photos app was enjoyable. Until the “iPhone storage almost full” notice became commonplace, trips, pet movies, explosion photos, and a stack of screenshots continued to eat away at storage. I wanted a victory that I could see immediately without having to purchase more iCloud storage or another program. It was like to winning the lotto for free storage.

The solution I was looking for turned out to be the Photos app. A Duplicates album on iOS 16 or later collects identical photos so you may combine or remove them all at once. Curiosity prompted me to open it, and I discovered dozens of lookalikes in the same vacation album. The storage bar shifted. Backups seemed quicker. The camera roll stopped lagging when browsing.

Start there if you have many versions of the same picture on your iPhone. Locate duplicates under Utilities, choose Albums, and then combine or remove them. Eliminating duplicate photographs not only frees up space but also makes cleaning a focused, easy activity that brings out memories you may have forgotten to keep.

Apple unveiled its “duplicate detection” function, which does just what its name implies. The application recognizes similar photos using on-device AI and compiles them into a convenient album inside the Photos app. According to Apple, duplicate images that seem identical but have different resolutions, file formats, or other minor variations are likewise classified as duplicates by the iPhone. This includes snapshots of almost similar photos taken simultaneously or even lower-resolution copies you may have saved to post on social media.

Here’s how to make advantage of the iPhone’s built-in storage space-free tool:

1. Launch the iPhone’s Photos app.

2. Tap Duplicates after navigating to the Utilities section. You may see and remove all of your iPhone’s duplicate images here, either one at a time or one at a time.

3. Tap the choose button and then choose Select All to remove all duplicates at once. Additionally, you may eliminate them in groups of two or more: To the right of the pairings, hit the Select button after tapping Select in the upper right corner. After that, choose Merge [number] to combine all of the duplicate images your iPhone finds and discard them.

4. Tap the Merge button that shows next to each pair of duplicates if you choose to remove them one at a time. To remove duplicates, choose Merge [number] Copies. Repeat this process for each similar picture you want to remove later.

The best version of the picture remains in your collection after merging. The Recently Deleted album now contains the duplicates.