Duplicate photos bugging you? Here’s how to easily remove them

Also delete extra clutter as a bonus!

Delete duplicate photos

Times have changed. Smartphone cameras have advanced exponentially for the past five years. Progress in communication technologies and the sheer volume of people using these technologies also has doubled. The one thing that remains unimproved, however, is your inability to capture perfect pictures in one take.

And out of the many implications that emerge from this inability of yours, one is that multiple takes add up to the number of duplicate images stored in the camera roll in the Photos app on your iPhone. Not just this, your phone also sometimes automatically duplicates photos while syncing to iTunes and your iCloud Photo Library. This ultimately leads to two things: a cluttered photo album and a phone with less storage than before.

You will be able to live with a cluttered photo album for once. Trust me, though, you won’t survive with an iPhone that’s running out of storage.

So, why not delete those duplicate photos and kill two birds with one stone? Well, it’s not that simple, especially if you have 11,510 photos in your camera roll. Try deleting them manually and you won’t live to see the sun the next day.

Thankfully, simpler ways to delete duplicate photos exist, and you’re going to see them in this article.

But first, let’s see how you can manually (and easily) delete duplicate photos from your iPhone’s camera roll.

How to manually delete duplicate photos from the camera roll in your iPhone

Not everyone has 11, 510 photos on their iPhone. For those who only have a few duplicates, manually deleting them makes sense.

Steps:

Delete from camera roll
  1. Open Photos
  2. Go to Albums.
  3. Tap on the camera roll.
  4. Tap on “Select.”
  5. Tap the duplicates one by one or just swipe over them to quickly select them.
  6. Tap on the little bin icon in the bottom right corner and confirm the deletion.

If you have accidentally deleted a photo, note that iOS has a cool feature that saves deleted photos for 30 days in the Recently Deleted album

How to use Remo Duplicate Photos Remover to delete duplicate photos from your iPhone

The main purpose of third-party apps is to bring about extra functionality to your smartphone. Remo (let’s call it that for now) is a true extension to that purpose. It lets you quickly and automatically delete duplicate photos that malevolently take up a lot of space.

Using this app, you can also review the photos it has identified for you as duplicates so that no important photos get deleted.

Remo uses Artificial Intelligence to identify duplicates. It also very intelligently segregates duplicates into “same” and “similar.” The icing on the cake is that Remo is absolutely free to use, unlike other similar apps.

Here’s how you can use Remo to delete duplicate photos from your iPhone.

Step 1:

Download the app from this link.

Once downloaded, open it and tap on “Allow” when it asks for permission to import photos. This step is absolutely important. If you decline the request, the app won’t be able to access your photo library and hence won’t identify and help you delete duplicates.


Worth Checking Out!: Remo Mac Photo Recovery Software.


Once you allow importing photos to Remo, tap on Scan. The app will require some time to scan depending on the number of photos you have. You can, however, leave Remo running in the background until it finishes scanning. In the meanwhile, care to check out some of our posts?

Step 2:

Delete duplicates
Choose photos and delete duplicates
Directions to use the app

Tap “Ok” when the app is done scanning. Select photo groups that you want to delete and tap on the trash can icon. Then, tap the “Allow” button on the native iOS prompt to delete the duplicate photos.

Done!

How to use Gemini to delete duplicate photos and manage other useless photos on your iPhone

Gemini is similar to Remo but has quite a few improvements. The major highlights include cleaning up clutter like screenshots, blurred images, and other low-quality images.

Gemini is in all ways better than Remo in what it does but requires you to pay for a monthly/yearly subscription in order to unlock some features that you may find useful. Gemini also offers a 3-day trial.

Download Gemini from this link.

Without the trial and the in-app purchase, you can only see, select, and keep the photos in the app’s “Similar” list for deletion. Gemini won’t let you delete those photos from within the app unless you pay for the whole package. However, you can delete the extra clutter without paying a penny.

However, keeping the paywall aside, Gemini is smarter since it has the ability to not only delete duplicates but also delete blurred images and screenshots. But don’t worry, you get to choose which photos to ultimately delete. I, personally, was baffled by the app’s ability to precisely identify blurred photos.

Plus, unlike Remo’s longer scan times, Gemini allows you to delete photos as they are being scanned in the background, which is a really good improvement over the former.

It took me four hours and three attempts to scan my photo library consisting of 11, 510 images using Remo, while I didn’t even have to keep count using Gemini. I guess this is what the difference between free and freemium seems like.

Now that you know the advantages of Gemini over Remo, let’s see how to use it to declutter your camera roll, or rather simply delete duplicates.

Step:

Open Gemini and provide it with appropriate permissions upon prompt in order for it to function properly.

Once permissions are given, the app will start listing and segregating photos into six categories, namely “similar, screenshots, notes, blurred, and other.”

Delete duplicates/similar photos

Gemini Duplicate Photos remover

Step 1:

Tap on the “Similar” tab, and you’ll find that the photos are further categorized month-wise.

Step 2:

Tap on any month’s photos.

Each photo group will have its own listing. Further, each photo group will also leave the best photo from the group unselected and the rest selected. Now, you’ve got two options:

  1. Keep all (keep all the photos in the group)
  2. Move to Trash (Move the selected photos to the trash)

Select any one option according to your needs.

Step 3:

On the floating bar at the bottom of the screen, tap Empty Trash to delete the photos from your camera roll. Then, tap “allow” when a prompt asking to delete those photos you just selected appears. This will delete the relative photos from the camera roll. However, if you change your mind, you can recover them by visiting the Recently Deleted album, selecting the photo you intend to recover, and tapping “Recover.”

Optional Step:

You can also delete all the photos that are automatically segregated by Gemini by tapping on the “Delete all” button that appears on the blue box before you start selecting photos in the “Similar” section.

Deleting screenshots, notes, blurred photos, and other photos

All the steps used in deleting similar photos apply here too. However, you also get the choice to deselect photos that you intend to keep.

Conclusion

Handling photos, especially duplicates, can sometimes be a daunting task. I have 11,510 photos. And I know I have stressed this number a lot in this post but it could be the epitome of a camera roll full of duplicate photos.

Nevertheless, thanks to the App Store and the third-party developers that make daunting stuff like this stupendously easy.

Til’ then, hang on to The 8-Bit for more great posts.