One of the mysteries of modern life is how our phones you get full so quickly. One minute you're unwrapping a new one iPhone and then suddenly it seems like you've run out of storage. And the culprit? Photos app filled with photos, selfies, pet photos, and various photos of receipts and parking space numbers. Almost all of them can be deleted to free up space (well, maybe not the pet photos), but it takes time and effort.
Before you give in and pay Apple for more iCloud storage, you should know that your phone already has a ridiculously simple solution built into it. If you're using iOS 16 or later, there's a magical little folder in the Photos app called Duplicates. It automatically merges all your same and almost identical pictures so that you can delete them in one go.
Instead of playing a painful game of spot the difference, you can free up a huge chunk of space with just a few taps. This is a simple solution that you have probably been ignoring.
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Delete duplicate photos and videos to free up space on your iPhone (iOS 26 shown here).
Apple introduced the “duplicate detection” feature in 2022, and it works as the name suggests. The tool uses on-device artificial intelligence to identify identical images and organize them into an easily accessible album in the Photos app. Apple says the iPhone classifies duplicates not only as exact copies, but also as photos that appear the same but have a unique resolution, file format or other slight differences. This includes lower-resolution versions that you may have saved to share on social media, or even a series of nearly identical photos taken at the same time.
Here's how to use the iPhone's built-in tool to free up storage space:
1. Open Photos app on your iPhone.
2. In iOS 26, tap Collections button. For earlier versions, continue to the next step.
3. Scroll down to Utilities section and click Duplicates. Here you can view all the duplicate photos on your iPhone and delete them individually or at once.
4. If you want to remove all duplicates at once, click the icon Choose button and then press Choose All. You can also remove them in groups of two or more. Click Choose in the top right corner, and then click Choose button to the right of par.
5. Next click Merge [number] to combine all the duplicate photos detected by your iPhone and send them to the trash.
If you want to remove duplicates individually, click the icon Merge button that appears next to each pair. Then click Merge [number] Copies to remove duplicates. Go down the row and repeat this step for all the same photos you want to delete.
Merging keeps the best version of the photo in your library. Duplicates are moved to a folder Recently Deleted album.
If you found this iOS feature useful, visit CNET. Quick Guide to iOS 26 Features And 18 features you might have missed. For more tips on how to save space, check out our complete list of space saving tips. clearing your iPhone's memory.
