How To Detect Duplicate Photos With iOS 16

A new feature in iOS 16 for the iPhone allows you to see duplicates in your Photos library and delete or merge them. This same feature is coming to iPadOS 16 and also macOS Ventura.

Comments: 20 Responses to “How To Detect Duplicate Photos With iOS 16”

    Charles Bake
    2 years ago

    I had a chat session with Apple Support this week who acknowledged there are reports of this feature not appearing for some users (like me!). I was told it should be swept up in the next iOS update.

    NANCY L
    2 years ago

    When you import, the date/time in metadata is the date/time imported. If you change the date and/or time to the correct date and /or time and then later import the exact photo but do not again modify the date/time, does this new feature see the 2 photos as the same picture with the merge option?

    2 years ago

    Nancy: I would image it would see them as duplicates. Why not try it and see?

    Bern Shanfield
    2 years ago

    Per question on YouTube re dups in albums I found this on '9-5', per Apple: “Merging combines relevant data like captions, keywords, and favorites into one photo with the highest quality. Albums that contain merged duplicates are updated with the merged photo.”

    It looks like deduping with not delete photos from albums.

    I started spinning cases (multiple dups with different data in multiple albums) and this put my mind at ease.

    Mike Fitzpatrick
    2 years ago

    Followed exactly as you said and i had 1070 duplicates. Merged them thinking space would be freed up on my phone, yet it went the other way increasing by 300Mb. Only me eh? Very useful though, thanks you.

    2 years ago

    Mike: Remember the other copies were sent to your Recently Deleted album. So they are still there for now.

    Howard Brazee
    2 years ago

    It's interesting that PadOS doesn't appear to have this option.

    2 years ago

    Howard: iPadOS 16 hasn't been released yet.

    Nancy Bishopp
    2 years ago

    Perfect explanation for this new deletion app - thank you for making iOS so much easier! Small question: when searching for dips in more than one folder or shared folders, will this method find all duplicates in each separate albums? Thanks, once again!

    2 years ago

    Nancy: This method only looks at the entire Library. It doesn't look in just one folder/album/moment or anything else.

    Jane Galbraith
    2 years ago

    If you delete a duplicate what happens to photos in albums? Maybe one would be in one album and the other would be in another?🤷🏼‍♀️ Or the same photo will be in more than one album.

    2 years ago

    Jane: If you have two photos that are duplicates, A and B, and A is in one album and B is another album, and you merged them, then you would have one photo after the merge and it would be listed with both albums A and B. Try it and see.

    Jason Gold
    2 years ago

    Having scanned numerous old photos and manually inserted the correct location I wonder how location metadata will be handled in a merge. Will it show two different locations? I've set up an experiment but my library is so large that even after a few days the app has not finished scanning all of the photos! A good solution would be to include the latest modification.

    Charlie B
    2 years ago

    What does Merge do when it sees a photo that has both a RAW and a jpeg version?

    2 years ago

    Charlie: Not sure. I'd imagine it either doesn't consider them duplicates, or if it does and lets you merge then it keeps the RAW. Try it and see.

    Dale King
    2 years ago

    Is it true that if you have duplicates in Folder A and B, that you have no way of know which one is the original and if you delete the original, all of the duplicates of that picture will also be deleted? Thank you.

    2 years ago

    Dale: Folders? Do you mean albums? If you are using the "merge" from this feature then one copy is kept of the photo, and it will appear in both albums as you expect. But I'm not sure that is what you mean. If you have a duplicate, there is no "original" it is just two copies of the same thing. If you delete one copy using the regular delete function, not merge, then it deletes just that one copy. Maybe you are confusing real duplicate copies of a photo with just seeing it in more than one place? Please see https://macmost.com/think-you-have-duplicate-files-or-photos-maybe-not.html to understand this better and avoid making disastrous mistakes.

    Dave
    2 years ago

    I have one another old and too cheap phone (android), since almost last 3-4 years, that has this feature. And there was no shout out of this feature like something special. When I saw first, just took it as a normal feature (like any other basic feature). Even I am great Apple fan, but seems too much hype of just a simple feature which already existed elsewhere silently.

    Karen S
    1 year ago

    I just upgraded to Ventura yesterday and the people portion keeps saying: 0 photos scanned--46611 remaining. The duplicates say: "Finding Duplicates. Scanning will continue when you're not using the app." I know it takes a while, but what exactly does it mean when I'm "not using the app"? Is it "quit" out and closed down completely or is it open and minimized in the dock or in the background while I'm using another app? Also, how long do you think it will take for this scanning of people and mo

    1 year ago

    Karen: Quit Photos. Then it will probably complete it while it is sleeping tonight.

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