Like many of us I will take multiple photos of the same subject within a matter of seconds in the hopes of getting the perfect picture. Of course my intention is to discard those that are less than perfect but I never do. Is there a way to find these near duplicates so I can delete those I don’t want?
iPhone 17 Pro Max, iOS 26
If you wait, the similar photos taken in quick succession should appear in the Duplicates album, but Photos needs time to scan your library. I am seeing such very similar photos appear usually weeks later in the Duplicates album.
Tap Collections > Utilities > Duplicates
See: Merge duplicate photos and videos on iPhone – Apple Support (UK)
Old Toad's suggestion to use Smart Albums is probably best.
I tried using the Duplicate finder in the trusted 3rd party app PowerPhotos ($40) with a Library of jpgs from my Nikon. I was then reminded that at Horse Shows I sometimes take pictures of jumping at 10 frames/ second, sometimes faster) so I had lots and lots of similar pictures!
In PowerPhotos you can change some of the requirements for being duplicates, like data and time or file name. But you can't say something like >95% similarity--settings like that would be pretty cool.
On the other hand, PhotoSweeper ($15) has this sort of thing:
which has a "Series of Shots" mode, and you can set the max time interval.
For similar pictures
you can set the level of match. I haven't really used this-- I need to play with it some more…
If you know the date or date range in which they were taken you can use a Smart Album like this:
My duplicates album only has 4 images. As an example, I have two photos of a herd of wild horses that are time stamped 1 second apart. Since the horses are moving, the images are not true duplicates (I took them in July, 2026). These are the sort of thing I would like to discover and then make a decision as to which one to keep.
Thanks. I’ll take a look at this!
Edited to add: I can work with this! Thank you for suggesting it!
Finding Photos With Nearly the Same Date/Time
