iOS 16 is no longer far from a public release, it is expected to release alongside the iPhone 14 series next month. The forthcoming iPhone software is jam-packed with new features. And duplicate picture detection is one of the best utility features on iOS 16. The new utility tool lets users easily merge or remove duplicate photos.
Weโve all got duplicate photos in our photo library. Whether, you saved the same picture twice on WhatsApp or iMessage, or, you love taking a lot of pictures and forgot to remove similar ones, or, mistakenly take a screenshot twice. Whatever the case, the new Photos app tool lets you easily declutter the photo library in a few taps.
Apple names the new utility tool, โduplicate detectionโ, as the name suggests, the tool will use machine learning tech to find similar images on the photo library and show them in the Duplicates album. The feature will help you save an ample amount of space on your iPhone. In this guide, I have covered everything on how to merge and delete duplicate photos on iPhone.
Up until now, there are two ways to find duplicate pictures, one is with the help of third-party apps, and the second one is by using the Shortcuts app. Both methods arenโt as easy as the native solution.
Letโs dive right into the steps.
How to Merge Duplicate Photos on iOS 16
The duplicate detection feature is limited to iOS 16 and the newer versions. If your iPhone is running on iOS 16 then your device will automatically aggregate all duplicate photos in the photo library.
The new utility tool will merge duplicates into a single photo by saving the highest quality photo. Hereโs how you can find the Duplicates album in the Photos app on iPhone.
- First things first, make sure youโre running on the latest iOS 16 beta or stable version if available.
- On your iPhone running on iOS 16, open the Photos app.
- Select the Albums tab from the bottom bar.
- On the albums screen, swipe down to the bottom.
- Under Utilities section, youโll see a new option, Duplicates.
- Tap on Duplicates.
- Review Duplicate photos and videos, and tap on the Merge option.
- If you want to merge all photos, then you can tap the Select option at the top right corner.
- Then, Select All on the top left corner, once selected, tap the Merge option at the bottom center.
- Once done, tap on Merge selected items or Merge 2 items.
- Thatโs it.
Merging duplicate photos and videos will save the high-resolution version on your device. The removed pictures remain available for 30 days in recently deleted albums, so you can easily recover any photo if needed or removed mistakenly. If youโve got a storage issue on your iPhone, then you can manually go to the Recently Deleted albums in utilities and then remove all images.
Note: Once you select pictures, you can adjust location, date, and time, with a single tap. Apart from that, thereโs an option to create another duplicate, copy selected photos, slide show the photos in the Duplicate album and you can also hide the picture if you want. All you can do by tap the three dots icon at the bottom right corner.
The new feature works well in my testing, thereโs no need to sideload third-party apps, you can also skip the shortcuts method now. All you need to do is, install the latest version of iOS 16 on your iPhone then let the work be done by the Duplicate detection feature on the Photos app.
One of the coolest things about the new feature is, that it also shows the size of the image on the preview of the image, which you can check at the time of merging.
Apart from merging the photos, you can also delete the images if they are no longer usable. You can select all photos, then tap on the delete icon at the bottom right corner.
So, this is the easiest way by which you can easily merge and delete duplicate photos on your iPhone.
If you still have a query on how to merge duplicate photos on iOS 16, then leave a comment in the comment box. Also, share this article with your friends.
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