5 Best Apps to Delete Duplicate Photos on an iPhone (Free & Paid)

best apps to delete duplicate photos

Taking multiple shots to capture that perfect moment is a habit many of us share, and for good reason. But the problem with this habit is that all those “just in case” photos end up hogging precious storage space on our iPhones and cluttering our photo galleries. Fortunately, there are excellent apps to delete duplicate photos on iPhone with ease, and I’ve narrowed them down to the top five best free and paid options for you.

1. CleanMyPhone

CleanMyPhone (formerly known as Gemini Photos) is a popular app to delete duplicate photos of iPhone whose capabilities stand on impressively clever AI algorithms capable of quickly delivering accurate results. Thanks to them, CleanMyPhone intelligently identifies similar shots from your burst photos and helps you keep the best ones.

cleanmyphone

All found duplicates are automatically sorted into categories like blurred images, screenshots, and similar shots to make it much easier to decide what to remove. My own testing has confirmed that the quality of the results lives up to the app’s marketing claims, and the countless user reviews on the App Store align with my experience.

Because all photo and video processing happens offline, you can use CleanMyPhone even without an internet connection, which makes the decision to include a network speed testing tool in the app somewhat strange. My guess is that the tool is there in an attempt to justify the cost of the app’s subscription plans, but it’s a rather poor attempt in my opinion considering that completely free speed testing tools are a dime a dozen.

Price: Free to download with a 3-day trial, then $24.99/year or $7.99/month for full access.

Download on the App Store
Pros:
  • Accurate results
  • Smart categorization of photos
  • Works offline
  • Intuitive interface
  • Auto-selection of best shots from similar photos
Cons:
  • Subscription required for full access

2. Cleanup: Phone Storage Cleaner

Unlike Clever Cleaner and CleanMyPhone, Cleanup: Phone Storage Cleaner is more than an app to get rid of duplicate photos because it can handle not just duplicate photos but also your contacts.

As far as Cleanup’s photo cleaning capabilities go, the app’s simple yet effective swipe-based interface (right to keep, left to remove) and intelligently analyzes your photos to suggest which ones to keep based on factors like focus quality, facial expressions, and whether subjects are looking at the camera.

cleanup

As user G5gold notes in their App Store review, “This app makes finding and eliminating similar and duplicate photos much easier than it would be if I were just scrolling through the thousands in my library.” That said, some users have reported that the deletion process can be inconsistent, requiring multiple attempts to remove selected photos. I haven’t experienced these issues myself during testing, but it’s worth mentioning that your mileage may vary.

The contact merging feature is nice, but I suspect that many people who are reading this article won’t care much about it. If you’re among them, then you might instead care about the handy widgets that come with the app and give you a nice overview of your current storage space utilization, as well as one-click access to the Cleanup app itself.

Price: Free with a 7-day trial, then $29.99/year or various weekly subscription options starting at $3.99.

Download on the App Store
Pros:
  • Intuitive swipe-based interface
  • Safe deletion process with trash folder
  • Smart photo analysis for best shot selection
  • Quick and responsive performance
  • Useful widgets that you can put on your home screen
Cons:
  • Subscription required for full access
  • Some users report inconsistent deletion process

3. Clean Your Photos for iPhone

Clean Your Photos for iPhone is another multipurpose app that can handle not just photo duplicates but also videos, contacts, and even calendar events. Included with this best photo cleaner app for iPhone is also a battery monitor feature, but it feels more like an afterthought than a genuinely useful addition.

clean your photos

To stand out in the large sea of iPhone cleaning apps, Clean Your Photos for iPhone offers some unique media-cleaning features like the ability to compress photos and videos without quality loss and a handy large file finder that helps you quickly identify storage hogs.

During my testing, the duplicate detection worked reliably enough, though I found the constant barrage of pop-ups asking for reviews after virtually every action incredibly annoying—something I didn’t experience with any other app on this list.

Price: Free to try. A subscription or lifetime license ($39.99) required to unlock all functionality.

Download on the App Store
Pros:
  • Simple one-tap cleanup option
  • Photo and video compression tools
  • Large file detection
  • Includes extra tools
Cons:
  • Excessive review request pop-ups
  • Many features locked behind premium
  • Some extra tools feel tacked on

4. Duplicate Cleaner App

Duplicate Cleaner App is a straightforward free duplicate photo cleaner that’s surprisingly thorough at finding duplicates that other apps miss, it can sometimes be overly aggressive in what it considers “similar” photos. For example, during my testing, it frequently flagged photos taken at different times of the same location as duplicates, even when they featured different people or lighting conditions.

duplicate cleaner

I also found the thumbnail previews to be a bit too small for comfortable viewing, which can make it tricky to make quick decisions about which photos to keep. This only adds to the frustration when dealing with similar-but-not-identical photos, as you often need to tap each thumbnail to view it full screen before making a decision—a process that quickly becomes tedious when going through hundreds of photos.

The app hasn’t seen any major feature updates in quite a while, with recent versions mostly focusing on bug fixes. However, if you’re simply looking for a reliable free app to clean up duplicate photos, Duplicate Cleaner App still does its job well enough, especially considering it doesn’t show any ads despite being completely free.

Price: Completely free with no in-app purchases or subscription fees.

Download on the App Store
Pros:
  • Completely free without ads
  • Often finds duplicates other apps miss
  • Includes contact management features
Cons:
  • Small thumbnail previews
  • Sometimes flags non-duplicate photos
  • No major feature updates recently

5. Remo Duplicate Photos Remover

The main reason why Remo Duplicate Photos Remover lands in last place on my list of the best apps to delete duplicate photos on iPhone is the fact that it hasn’t been updated since 2021. While this free duplicate photo cleaner still functions, its dated interface and potential compatibility issues with newer iOS versions make it hard to recommend as a top choice.

remo duplicate finder

The lack of updates also seems to be reflected in Remo’s accuracy, which has been the topic of several negative reviews. As user InIphonehell notes, “Out of at least 700 duplicate Live Photos the app only found 8 duplicates.” While the developer suggests this might be due to how iOS handles certain types of photos, I found similar inconsistencies in my testing with regular photos as well. What’s more, scanning takes much, much, much longer than it does with the other cleaners I’ve tested.

That said, one positive aspect of the app’s lack of updates is its compatibility with older iOS versions – it runs even on iOS 9. So if you happen to have an ancient iPhone filled with duplicate photos that you need to clean up, this free app to remove duplicate photos might be exactly what you need.

Price: Completely free with no in-app purchases or subscriptions required.

Download on the App Store
Pros:
  • Completely free to use
  • Works on very old iOS versions (iOS 9+)
  • Simple interface
Cons:
  • Not updated since 2021
  • Painfully slow scanning
  • Inconsistent duplicate detection
  • Dated interface
  • Limited functionality compared to modern alternatives

Can You Delete Duplicate Photos on iPhone Without an App?

Yes, you can delete duplicate photos on iPhone without an app through the built-in Duplicates album feature that Apple . While it’s a welcome addition to iOS, it comes with several significant limitations compared to dedicated solutions.

iOS’s duplicate detection can identify both exact copies with different metadata and photos that appear identical but have different resolutions or file formats. However, what the best app to delete duplicate photos on iPhone can do better is identify similar photos taken in burst mode or slightly different angles of the same subject – photos that aren’t technically duplicates but still take up unnecessary space.

Another limitation is that iOS’s duplicate detection happens in the background and can take quite some time to complete. In contrast, a dedicated photo cleaner app for iPhone can scan your entire library in minutes. The native feature also doesn’t give you any control over the scanning process, and it displays all found duplicates together without any categorization.

That said, since it’s already on your device, you might want to try it before investing in a dedicated solution. Here’s how to use the built-in duplicate photo detection:

  1. Open the Photos app on your iPhonephotos app icon ios highlighted
  2. Scroll down until you see the Utilities section.
  3. Tap on Duplicates.
    duplicate photos option highlighted
  4. Go through the found duplicates.
  5. Tap Merge next to each pair of duplicates to keep the highest quality version and delete the others.duplicate photos merge button

Note: If your iPhone hasn’t detected any duplicates yet, the Duplicates album won’t appear in the Utilities section. Additionally, you need to be running iOS 16 or later to access this feature.

FAQ

Clever Cleaner is currently the best app to delete duplicate photos on iPhone because it offers robust duplicate detection completely free. CleanMyPhone and Cleanup follow closely behind because they require you to purchase a subscription plan to unlock all features.
Duplicate photos consume storage space, whose lack can slow down your iPhone’s performance and even prevent important updates from being possible to install. That’s why you should regularly clean duplicate photos using free duplicate photo cleaners.
No, the best iPhone duplicate photo finder apps can detect both exact duplicates and similar photos. The most advanced apps, such as Clever Cleaner, use advanced AI algorithms to find photos that are visually similar but may have different file names, resolutions, or slight variations, like burst photos, edited versions, or shots taken moments apart.
That depends entirely on how you use your iPhone’s camera. If you frequently take photos in burst mode or edit images often, a monthly cleanup is recommended. For casual photographers, cleaning every few months is usually sufficient. The key is to act when you notice your storage space getting low.
David Morelo is a seasoned technology writer with a decade of professional experience and a Bachelor's degree in English Linguistics. He also holds a Google Cybersecurity Certificate. At Macgasm, he mainly writes product reviews and in-depth guides, with a focus… Full Bio