How to Clean Up Similar Photos and Screenshots on iPhone

The problem

You take ten photos to get one good one. The other nine stay forever. Add screenshots (recipes, receipts, chats, parking tickets) that you needed for ten minutes and never deleted, and a big part of your library is things you’d never choose to keep.

Hand-picking from thousands of thumbnails is tiring, and the near-identical ones are exactly the hardest to tell apart.

How the groups are built

• Screenshots are identified by the flag iOS puts on screenshots. No analysis is needed.
• Similar photos: the app only compares photos taken within about 10 seconds of each other. For each it makes a small visual fingerprint and groups those that match closely. Anything already flagged as an exact duplicate is left out of this.
• The suggested keeper in each similar group is the highest-resolution photo, then the largest file.

How to clean them

1. Run the scan.
2. In swipe mode each flagged photo appears with the Keeping thumbnail where there’s a keeper. Tap for the full-screen comparison.
3. Keep the best shot (eyes open, in focus, best expression). Swipe the rest left.
4. For screenshots, work through them quickly. They are opt-in, so nothing is pre-marked.
5. Commit and approve the iOS delete prompt, then empty Recently Deleted.

In the grid, Select All on a tab keeps the suggested best in each group and selects the rest; Clear deselects.

Limits you should know

• It only looks at photos close in time. Similar photos taken a day apart, or the same photo from two trips, are not grouped.
• The suggested keeper isn’t always the best shot. It’s picked by resolution and size, not by whether someone blinked.
• Live Photos and edits can behave differently from simple stills. Check a few before bulk-deleting.

Tips

• Check burst groups at full size before accepting the suggestion.
• Screenshots are a quick win and very safe once you’ve glanced through them.
• Rescan after a big shoot. The app tells you when the library has changed.

FAQ

How does it decide two photos are similar? Photos taken within about 10 seconds of each other are compared by a small visual fingerprint; if they match closely, they’re grouped.

Why are screenshots not pre-selected? They’re often things you meant to keep, such as tickets and receipts, so you choose what to remove.

Will it group two similar photos taken a day apart? No. The time window keeps comparisons to shots taken close together, so similar photos taken hours apart are not grouped.