How to Merge Duplicate Photos on iPhone

Duplicate and near-duplicate photos turned your library into a mess? Well, thanks to multiple developments, it’s now easier than ever to merge duplicate photos on your iPhone. Whether using Apple’s built-in Photos app or a more advanced third-party app, we’ll show you exactly how—step by step. Let’s do this.

How to Find Duplicates Eligible for Merging on iPhone

If we’re talking about features already built into your device, ever since iOS 16, Apple has had an automatic process that finds duplicate photos on the iPhone and allows you to merge them. iOS scans the entire library and groups identical photos into a dedicated Duplicates album under Utilities.

To find duplicate photos on the iPhone follow these steps:

  1. Launch the Photos app and scroll down to the ‘Utilities‘ section.
  2. Look for the ‘Duplicates‘ album.Duplicates
  3. This album automatically groups identical or similar photos.
  4. Examine each set of duplicates and decide to either merge or delete them.
Note. This feature has made iPhone users’ lives much easier, but it still has some limitations. It only shows exact copies of the image file, so many photos that look near-identical to you won’t get flagged as duplicates and won’t appear in the Duplicates album. If you want a more in-depth look at how iOS identifies duplicates, we covered it in more detail in How to Find Similar (But Not Duplicate) Photos on iPhone.

Also, it might take time to index newly added photos, so duplicates won’t always show up immediately. How to deal with this downside? And what about near-duplicates—can they be merged? We’ll cover that in the next section.

3 Methods to Merge Duplicate Photos on iPhone

Let’s get to business. We’ll show you three methods to merge duplicate photos on an iPhone. We’ll start with the most effective method— a dedicated app for a more thorough cleanup. In our opinion, this is the best option because, for most iOS users, even if the Duplicates album is not empty, merging exact copies rarely frees up a significant amount of storage. The real problem is near-duplicates, which take up far more space but aren’t detected by Apple’s built-in tool.

Then, we’ll cover the built-in options, with step-by-step guides on how to merge duplicates using Apple’s Photos app.

Method 1: Use Third-Party Apps to Merge Duplicate (and Similar) Photos

This option is the easiest and most convenient. Third-party duplicate finders are popular for a reason—they have none of the limitations of Apple’s built-in feature and are definitely the fastest way to merge duplicates and near-duplicate photos on an iPhone. We tested dozens of the most popular options in the App Store, and you can check our findings in this ranking of the best duplicate finder iPhone apps.

For this article, we’ll use the app that took the #1 spot—Clever Cleaner: AI Duplicate Cleaner. It earned that position thanks to its high-end AI detection algorithms, which were incredibly accurate in our tests, and because it’s actually free. Unlike most apps we tried, this one has no trials, no daily limits, no locked features—a rare find in the App Store.

Here’s how to merge duplicates on iPhone using Clever Cleaner:

  1. Download the App: Type ‘Clever Cleaner’ in the App Store search bar or download it using this link.
  2. Open the App and Allow Access: Launch Clever Cleaner and grant permission to scan your photo library.Similars in Clever Cleaner
  3. Go to the ‘Similars’ Tab: This section contains both exact duplicates and near-identical images.
  4. Tap ‘Smart Cleanup’: This option automates everything, it can merge near-duplicate photos in just a few seconds—AI will analyze and select photos for deletion.
  5. Review AI Suggestions: The app automatically marks lower-quality or redundant images, so these duplicate or near-duplicate photos can be “merged” (in reality, the app deletes the extras and keeps only the best shot based on clarity, resolution, and other factors).Slide to Delete in Clever Cleaner
  6. Tap ‘Restore’ if Needed: If the app selects images you want to keep, tap ‘Restore‘ to deselect them.
  7. Slide to Delete: If everything looks good, confirm the cleanup, and the app will handle the rest.

For those who want a more selective approach, Clever Cleaner offers a semi-automatic way to merge duplicates. The app organizes similar photos into groups under the ‘Similars‘ tab and preselects the best-quality shot. You can tap on a group, review the images, and either accept the selection or manually pick the ones to keep.

Review manually in Clever Cleaner

If you don’t want to delete anything in a group, tap ‘Skip All‘ to move on. To remove unwanted duplicates, tap ‘Move to Trash‘. Once you finish, tap ‘Empty Trash‘ and confirm the action. The app will then move the selected photos to the ‘Recently Deleted‘ album, where they will stay for up to 30 days. If you don’t want to wait for automatic deletion, you can manually clear everything from ‘Recently Deleted‘ to free up space immediately.

Confirm in Clever Cleaner

Note. As we mentioned, all features in Clever Cleaner are free to use with no limits. As stated on the official Clever Cleaner: Free cleanup app’s page, early users will “enjoy lifetime access for free” and “will never be asked to pay for upgrades or new features.” That means this app might come in handy for future iPhone cleanups as it adds more tools over time. As to three other tools that are already available they are:

Method 2: Merge All Duplicate Photos Within Photos App

Now, let’s get back to the native features already available. As we said, though they have some limitations, they’re still helpful, and we can’t miss out on them.

So here’s how to merge the same photos on iPhone using Apple’s built-in tool:

  1. Locate the Duplicates: As described in previous section of this article navigate to the Duplicates album
  2. Merge Duplicates: To merge everything at once, tap ‘Select‘, then ‘Select All‘, and finally ‘Merge‘.Merge Duplicates
  3. Confirm Your Action: After tapping the Merge button, confirm the action to complete the process.Tap Merge
Note. When you tap Merge, you’ll see a pop-up asking what exactly you want to merge. It offers two options:

  • Exact copies – These may have different metadata but are otherwise identical.
  • Duplicates with slight differences – These might have different file formats, resolutions, or minor variations but are still duplicates of the same photo (not similar images like we discussed earlier).

Method 3: Merge Apple Photos Duplicates Selectively

If the previous method merges all photos that the Photos app flagged as duplicates, this one provides a more controlled approach. It lets you merge duplicates selectively if, for some reason, you need those extra copies.

Here’s how to do it:

  1. Review Each Group of Duplicates: In the Duplicates folder, take the time to review each group of similar photos.
  2. Select Photos to Merge: Choose individual photos or groups that you want to merge.Choose individual photos
  3. Merge Selected Photos: After Selecting photos you wish to merge tap on the Merge (n) button on the bottom of the screen where n – represents the number of selected duplicate photos.
Reminder. After you merge duplicates on your iPhone, they are not immediately removed from storage. Instead, they move to the Recently Deleted album, where they stay for up to 30 days before being permanently deleted. If you need to free up space right away, open Recently Deleted, select the merged duplicates, and delete them manually.

Final Words

As they say, prevention is better than cure. While merging duplicates is easy, it’s definitely better to avoid them in the first place, it will save you time and storage in the long run. From our experience, if we had to name the most common mistakes that lead to this problem, they would be:

  • Multiple imports of the same images from iCloud, a Mac, or external storage.
  • Edits that produce new versions (crops, filters, other modifications) instead of updating the original.
  • Manual transfers with AirDrop or third-party apps can result in extra copies of the same image.
  • Direct downloads from messages, social media, or email, which sometimes store the same image more than once.

Of course, in everyday use, it’s impossible to stay vigilant all the time and avoid every mistake. But there are ways to make things easier and keep your iPhone library in top shape.

To keep your photos organized and duplicate-free, check out our guide: How to Organize Photos on iPhone Without Duplicates. We go beyond duplicates and cover custom albums, smart tags, “hidden” iPhone features, and tricks to keep your library in top shape. Be sure to check it out—it’ll make future cleanups much easier!

FAQ

Mergingis the the process of identifying and combining multiple copies of the same photo into one superior version. This process eliminates redundant images saving you some storage space. During merging, the system evaluates the quality of each photo and retains the one with the best clarity and resolution, so that the finest version is preserved.
Regular checks for duplicate photos, ideally every few months or after major photography events, are key to maintaining an organized library. This routine helps you avoid a buildup of duplicates and makes managing your library less overwhelming. With each review, you’ll likely have fewer duplicates, making the process more efficient over time.
Merging duplicates in iOS is designed to preserve photo quality. The system smartly keeps the highest quality photo from your duplicates, so you don’t lose important details or clarity in your images.
Merging duplicate photos indeed saves space on your iPhone. It eliminates multiple copies of the same image, freeing up storage previously occupied by these duplicates. This practice is particularly useful to free up storage on devices with limited space.
Indeed, when photos are merged, the duplicate copies are deleted, and only the selected best version remains. After all this action designed to reduce clutter in your photo library by removing surplus images.
The selection of the photo to keep usually depends on its quality. The system automatically analyzes factors such as resolution, focus, and lighting to choose the best image. However, some third-party applications provide the option to manually review and select the preferred photo, offering more control over the final outcome.
In the merging process, only the primary photo’s edits, captions, and any applied filters are retained. If there are unique modifications or annotations on the duplicate photos that you wish to keep, you need to manually apply these to the primary photo before merging.
Apple’s built-in Photos app only detects and merges exact or near-identical duplicates, so similar photos won’t appear in the Duplicates album. If you want to merge similar images, you’ll need a third-party app. Clever Cleaner and Remo Duplicate Photos Remover are two great options for this. These apps can group photos that may not be exact duplicates but are still visually similar. Both apps allow you to review and merge similar images, and since they are free, you can clean up your iPhone’s photo library without paying for premium features.
During merge, iOS selects most full metadata among all duplicates, including the date, time, and location where it was taken. Unfortunately, any unique metadata associated with the rest of images is discarded.
If you ever have second thoughts about a merge, no worries! The photos that weren’t kept in the merge are moved to the ‘Recently Deleted’ album, giving you a chance to bring them back if needed. Also some apps offer an immediate “undo” feature right after merging, allowing you to quickly revert the action if you change your mind. But, this option might only be available for a short period after the merge.
Yes, you can do this directly in the Duplicates album in the Photos app. Simply open Photos, go to Albums > Utilities > Duplicates, tap ‘Select All‘, and then tap ‘Merge‘ to combine all detected duplicates at once.

For a more thorough and fully automatic cleanup, you can use an app like Clever Cleaner, which we covered in this article. It can merge both duplicates and similar photos with its Smart Cleanup feature. The app automatically selects the Best Shot based on quality and removes all lower-quality versions in one tap for your entire library.

Yurii Kulynych
Yurii Kulynych is a skilled professional who continues to work in Quality Assurance (QA) for InsanelyMac while also starting to write articles. He has a strong eye for detail and extensive experience in ensuring content quality, especially in areas like data recovery, understanding macOS/iOS, and storage solutions for Apple devices. Yurii excels in writing easy-to-follow guides and putting together helpful toolkits.
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