Over the years, the number of photos that we accumulate in the iPhone or iPad photo application has grown to incredible sizes. We have seen libraries with up to 25,000 snapshots and videos that, if we don’t check from time to time, eat up the limited space on our computers.
In a first attempt Apple created a new image format with iOS 11 called .HEIF. A format that significantly reduced the size of the photos while respecting their resolution as much as possible. Now with the arrival of iOS 16 , Apple adds a new native function to be able to eliminate those duplicate photos that only increase the size of our libraries, without the need for third-party applications.
How to delete duplicate photos on iPhone and iPad
- First and foremost, this new feature is included in iOS 16. So it is essential that you have it installed. Either because you are testing the developer version, or because you already have the official version (which will arrive in a few days).
- With iOS 16 installed, we access the photos application and scroll to the bottom where the different photography styles we have are located, as well as a section called ‘More items’.
- We locate and click on where it says ‘Duplicates’, where we can see the duplicate photos we have and where we can also review and merge said duplicates to save that precious memory space on our equipment.
In this simple way and without the need for third-party applications to which we grant permission to access and view our photographs. Apple goes one step further to more efficiently manage the space on our computers, in this case thanks to this new feature in iOS 16 to remove duplicate photos.
Little by little, and with each update to its operating systems, Apple introduces new native features that help protect our privacy by replacing third-party apps that can misuse the information we give them access to.