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Tips & Tricks

Beginner

3 min read 4 stepsApril 19, 2026Verified April 2026

How to Find and Delete Duplicate Photos Taking Up Space on Your Phone

Duplicate photos can take up gigabytes of storage — here's how to find and remove them on iPhone and Android without accidentally deleting originals.

At a Glance

Use iPhone's built-in Duplicates finder

~36s

On iPhone running iOS 17 or later, the Photos app automatically identifies duplicate photos for you. Open Photos → tap "Albums" at the bottom → scroll down to find "Duplicates" under the Utilities section. If your phone found duplicates, they appear here in pairs with a "Merge" button. Tapping "Merge" keeps the highest quality version of each duplicate pair and deletes the other. Tap "Merge All" to remove all duplicates at once, or review each pair before merging.

Quick Tip

After merging duplicates, the deleted copies go to the "Recently Deleted" album, where they stay for 30 days before being permanently removed. If you merged something by mistake, you can recover it within 30 days.

Use Google Photos to find similar photos on Android

~26s

Google Photos can find nearly identical photos — like multiple shots of the same scene taken in burst mode. Open Google PhotosLibrary → "Manage storage" → "Review and delete." Google categorizes items as Blurry photos, Screenshots, and Similar photos. Tap "Similar photos" to see groups of nearly identical shots. Review each group and select the ones to delete (usually keeping the sharpest one). Tap "Move to trash" for the ones you want removed.

Use a third-party app for a deeper duplicate scan

~21s

For a more thorough scan, a dedicated app works better. Gemini Photos (iPhone, $2.99/month or $19.99/year) scans your entire library for duplicates, similar photos, and low-quality shots, organizing them into categories for easy review and deletion. Smart Cleaner (Android, free with ads) does a similar scan. Both apps require you to confirm deletions before anything is removed permanently.

Check how much space you recovered

~24s

After deleting duplicates and clearing the Recently Deleted album, check your storage. On iPhone: SettingsGeneral → iPhone Storage. You will see how much space photos and videos now use. On Android: SettingsStorage. Also go to Photos → AlbumsRecently Deleted and tap "Delete All" to free the space right away (normally, deleted photos stay in this album for 30 days, counting against your storage the whole time).

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Phones can build up thousands of duplicate photos over the years. This happens when you back up and restore a phone, take screenshots of shared images, or save photos from messaging apps that already exist in your camera roll. These duplicates waste storage space and make your photo library harder to look through. Both iPhone and Android have built-in tools that find and remove duplicates for you.

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