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3.1. Duplicate Photos: Why it happens
Regardless of how often you snap photos, it’s safe to say that you have thousands of them in your photo library. And as you try to keep your phone synced with your computer or a cloud service, there’s a good chance you will notice an annoying amount of duplicate photos on your iPhone.
Learn some of the common causes of duplicate pictures and what you can do to prevent them in the future.
Reason 1. iCloud sync
In theory, iCloud should recognize when your iPhone is trying to upload a duplicate picture. But, from time to time, they still sneak in.
How to prevent duplicate photos: Upload from one source
While it might be tempting to manually sync your iPhone photos to your computer via the USB, don’t do this if you have iCloud Photos turned on. This is especially true if you have iCloud Photos turned on, on both your iPhone and computer. It’s best to just let one device upload photos iCloud and all your other devices download from iCloud.
Reason 2. Multiple cloud services
If you’re using multiple cloud services, such as iCloud and Google Photos, duplicates become more likely. Because your iPhone is uploading pictures to two different locations, it will occasionally see the photo as two different images because they’re being synced from different places.
How to prevent duplicate photos: Use one cloud service on your phone
The best way to prevent duplicates due to multiple cloud services is to use only one automatic service on your iPhone. If you want to use another cloud service as a backup, it’s best to either do it manually or only have your computer signed in to the two services.
Reason 3. The HDR setting is turned on
HDR is a camera effect for your photos. It stands for High Dynamic Range, which, in simplest terms, means that when you take a picture, the camera is taking multiple images and combining them into one photo. This gives your picture a sharper, higher contrast.
In iPhone 8 and older, HDR is a feature you can switch on and off. When it's on, it creates an HDR photo, while also saving the original photo. This means you’re saving two similar-looking versions of the same picture. And while they’re not exact duplicates, you probably don’t want to keep the original and the HDR photo.
How to prevent duplicate photos: Turn off Auto HDR
Fortunately, you can turn off Automatic HDR, allowing you to choose when you want to use HDR so you don’t end up with multiple similar-looking pictures:
- Open the Settings app.
- Tap Camera.
- Toggle off Auto HDR.
- Open the Camera app.
- Tap HDR to turn it on or off.
Another option you have is to turn off the setting to Keep Normal Photo altogether. That way, once you take an HDR picture, it only keeps a single copy.
- Open Settings.
- Tap Camera.
- Toggle Keep Normal Photo off.
Reason 4. Photo editing
If you use a third-party app like VSCO to edit your photos, you’re likely to end up with duplicates. After you’ve finished editing the pictures, you typically need to save them to your Camera Roll again to share them with friends or on social media, which can create multiple versions of the same photo.
Like with HDR photos, pictures edited with a third-party app are saved back to your Camera Roll, creating a similar picture. So while it’s not an exact duplicate, it’s still a similar image taking up twice the storage space.
How to prevent duplicate photos: Edit in the Photos app
While the Photos app may not have the breadth of editing capabilities, it is still a powerful tool. And when you edit in the Photos app, it saves over the original by default to avoid the creation of duplicates.
- Open the Photos app.
- Select the picture you want to edit.
- Tap Edit in the top-right corner.
- Make your adjustment and then tap Done.