It happens frequently: You open the camera on your iPhone to take a quick picture, but you wind up with many identical-looking photos. However, another frequent occurrence is failing to remove the duplicates later, which results in your iPhone or iCloud using up valuable storage space.

Fortunately, if you have iOS 16 or later on your iPhone, there is a simple workaround for this problem.

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.

Before following the detailed instructions below, make sure that iCloud synchronization is enabled. See all of the new features we anticipate Apple releasing with iOS 26 this autumn for additional information.

Screenshots demonstrating iOS 16’s duplicate photo removal feature
To increase your iPhone’s storage, delete unnecessary images and movies.

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

1. Launch the iPhone’s Photos app.
2. At the bottom of the screen, tap the Albums tab.
3. 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.
4. Tap Select in the upper right corner to select the later option.
5. To combine and remove all of the duplicate images your iPhone finds at once, tap Select All.
6. To remove duplicates one at a time, scroll up and choose the duplicate photos you wish to remove, then select Merge. 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.