Introduction
The awesome camera on Apple’s iPhone and iPad devices makes it incredibly easy to capture all of life’s moments. The downside is that it’s incredibly easy to fill up your device’s storage with photos and videos. Thankfully, Apple is giving users the ability to find duplicate photos and videos on iPhone or iPad, and merge them. Within this process duplicates are classified both as exact copies that may have different metadata, as well as photos that appear to be the same, but may have unique resolutions, file formats, or other slight differences.
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Steps to Find Duplicate Photos and Videos on iPhone or iPad
- Launch the Photos app on your Apple iPhone or iPad. Again, to move forward with this process you need to be running iOS 16 or later on your iPhone or iPadOS 16 on your iPad.
- Tap “Albums” in the menu along the bottom of this screen. Scroll down this screen until you land on the Utilities section, and then tap “Duplicates” in this section. A list of all of duplicate photos and videos found on your iPhone or iPad will be shown. Again, duplicates are classified both as exact copies that may have different metadata, as well as photos that appear to be the same, but may have unique resolutions, file formats, or other slight differences.
- Where you want to remove the duplicate photo or video, tap “Merge” next to that detected duplicate. You’ll see a prompt that the selected items are exact copies that may have different metadata. You’ll also see a note that moving forward with merging will keep one version of the photo or video that will combine the highest quality and relevant data.
- Tap “Merge” to move forward with merging your selected duplicate. That photo or video will no longer be displayed in your detected duplicates list on your Apple iPhone or iPad.
Reasons to Find Duplicate Photos and Videos on iPhone or iPad
There are a few good reasons you may want to find duplicate photos on your Apple iPhone or iPad:
- Free Up Storage Space: Duplicate photos and videos can quickly take up valuable storage space on your iPhone or iPad. Finding and removing these duplicates can help free up space for more important things.
- Avoid Confusion: Having multiple copies of the same photo can make it difficult to locate the one you want to use. Removing duplicates ensures a clean and organized photo library.
- Improved Performance: Large numbers of duplicate photos can slow down the performance of your Apple device. Finding and deleting these duplicates can help improve the performance of your iPhone or iPad.
