Why You Get Duplicate Photos On iPhone & How To Delete Them

As sentimental as you may get, you probably take photos of everything that happens to you or to your loved ones. Perhaps, you shot over a hundred or more images in just a day. And, going through the images to delete the not-so-impressive shots breaks you and your heart just can’t take it. But there are times that you have to let them go to give space to better ones. 

Photos, indeed, take the biggest space on your phone. We are guilty of taking too many photos when we feel good about ourselves, or even when we don’t. Admit it, you also love to take stolen shots of the people you love even when they look kind of gross. 

But, have you ever noticed how your iPhone produces not just one but two or more images for a single shot that you take? These photos are all the same and are just a waste of storage, but why do they keep appearing? In this article, we are going to explain why iPhone duplicate the photos that you take and how will you delete them. 

Why do photos keep duplicating on iPhone?

Are you wondering why your iPhone keeps on duplicating the images that you take? Well, there could be a lot of reasons why and some of them are as follows:

• You use your iPhone burst mode feature, which takes a minimum of 10 pictures in just one shot.
• Instead of using the normal mode, you use HDR or High Dynamic Range when taking photos. HDR balances high contrast scenes and gives better results by combining several images into one picture. That means it takes multiple pictures, so you will find three or more similar pictures in your photos. Moreover, HDR photos take bigger spaces than normal photos. To stop HDR saving two images at a time, click on the “Settings” options then scroll and tap on “Photos”. Then Slide the “ON” button to “OFF” under the “HDR (High Dynamic Range)” option.
• You might have edited images that resulted in duplicate copies of the same picture. 
• You might have synced your device with Itunes. 

How to Delete Duplicate iPhone Photos

1. Delete the duplicate photos manually

Before opting for other methods, most especially when your photos are not that many yet but you want to clean up your phone, you can try manually deleting the unwanted images. 

To delete duplicate photos manually:

• Launch your Photos app.
• Tap Photos at the lower left side of your screen to see all your images in chronological order, with the latest one being on the bottom. 
• Tap the Select option at the top right corner of the screen. Select the photos you want to delete by clicking or tapping on them.
• Once you are done choosing all the images that you want to delete, click on the bin icon located at the bottom right corner of your screen.
• Click on the Delete XXX photos to continue deleting all the selected images or hit Cancel if you wish to remove or add more photos.

After deleting your photos, you can either save them on your GDrive account, sync them with your iCloud, or save them on a flash drive. If you have photos and videos, a 128 GB flash drive will already do. But if you have a lot of larger files—videos, recordings, PDFs, or music files—get a 1 TB external hard drive instead.

2. Use Third-Party Apps

You can use plenty of third-party apps to delete duplicate images for you. Some of these apps are the following:

a. Gemini

Cost: $1.99 per month + $14.99 to access all the features of the app (optional)

Gemini is a photo app introduced in 2018 by MacPaw. This is an iPhone application that can remove duplicate photos on your iPhone using a smart machine learning algorithm. Aside from deleting duplicate image copies, it can also remove clutters including the screenshots and blurred shots in your gallery. If you are a new user, you can access and use all of its features for free for three days. 

Gemini will scan all the images in your Photos for the very first time you use the app. Once the scan is complete, two folders will appear—similar and clutter. 

Similar Photos

Similar photos display images based on the date that they were taken. Newer images appear on the top of the screen. Images that are alike are stacked together. A number also appears to let you know how many similar images are there in each stack. 

• To find out the best image in a stack, click a stack. Scroll to the left to find out the photos that are ready for deletion.
• Click Delete to delete the selected photos. A pop-up message will show to confirm that you want to delete all selected photos in all Apple devices you have, in case you are using iCloud Photos.
• If you have changed your mind and want to keep other photos, simply uncheck the images. 

Clutter

Images under clutter are sorted by screenshots, notes, or blurred. By default, all images under clutter are ready for deletion.

• Click the delete button then follow the instructions that will appear in order to delete all the images found in one section. 
• To keep some photos, you can individually uncheck the photos you want to keep. If you want to keep all images, simply click the Deselect All option.

b. Remo Duplicate Photos Removal

Cost: Free

• Launch the Remo app then tap scan for the app to scan all duplicate images on your iPhone. You will be asked to give permission if you wish to receive notifications. Allow the app to access all your images and you can opt not to receive any notification from the app. 
• A message that contains the total number of duplicate images and the storage that these images take will pop-up once the scan is complete. 
• Click the OK button.
• Tap images individually or tap Select All and then click on the bin icon to delete the images. 
• Once the exact duplicates are deleted, you can delete next the near-duplicates, which you can find under similar photos. 

c. Dr. Cleaner

Dr. Cleaner is an app that categorizes similar images, burst photos, screenshots, and videos. The latest version of Dr. Cleaner is equipped with several amazing features, which include Junk Files Cleaner, Big Files Scanner, Duplicate Files Finder, Intelligent App Manager, and File Shredder.

• Open the app and allow it to scan your images.
• Images will be categorized. Deletion-worthy images are joined together. 
• The app will show how much space you can clean up if you delete the selected images. 

Photo project ideas you could do with your old photos

Don’t want to delete your old photos or sync them with your iCloud? You can commemorate memories better by turning them to memorabilia. But first… you’re going to need a mobile printer.

We suggest getting the wireless Fujifilm smartphone printer if you want a portable mobile printer. You can bring it anywhere and instantly print photos and empty your storage. You can also opt for the Kodak Mini 2, which can print wallet-sized photos. Kodak Mini 2 is still wireless and portable like the Fujifilm, but it comes with an app that can let you edit photos. 

Photo magnets using polaroid magnet frames.

You can make your own photo magnets using your printed iPhone photos. You don’t need a polaroid camera. Just print your photos and buy polaroid magnet frames. These are so easy to make since you just need to stick them to the back of the photos. And there you have it—instant fridge magnets! 

Family photos bookshelf

A cute project would be putting your blown-up iPhone photos as a background or wallpaper for your bookshelf. The photos will serve as the decor. You won’t need plants or knick-knacks to display on your shelves. 

365 photo project

If you want to remember a year fondly, do it with photos! You can print 12 photos, each taken from January to December. You can compile them in a photo book, or better, you can insert them in this photo album shaped like a calendar. 

Personalized greeting cards

You can easily make greeting cards on a designing app like Canva. Use any seasonal greeting card template, attach your photos, and write a heartfelt message. Your grandparents would love to see your smiles at this time especially. On the other hand, you can print your iPhone photos and stick them to these blank greeting cards.

Conclusion

Sure, taking photos is good, but the space that they eventually take up can be annoying. Deleting duplicate images can consume a lot of your time. Thankfully, there are plenty of ways on how you can easily get rid of them. So, why stop or limit yourself if cleaning up unwanted images is that easy, right?