The Duplicates album was introduced in the Photos app with the release of iOS 16. Thanks for this feature, users can quickly delete or merge many duplicate photos, videos on iPhone without having to download a third-party duplicate photo finder or manually find duplicates. However, some users reported the Duplicates album not showing on their iPhone. Don’t worry, it can be fixed quite easily. In this article, I’ll tell you 8 fixes to try if your Duplicates album not showing up.
Cisdem Duplicate Finder
The first thing you need to check is that you actually have duplicate photos in the Photos app on your iPhone. The Duplicates album is not always in the Photos app. It only appears when duplicate photos are detected and disappears if no duplicates are found or all the found duplicates have been merged/deleted. Note that Apple cannot identify some of the photos that you think are duplicates. According to my test, most duplicates it finds are exact duplicate photos. Some near-duplicates, such as such as edited, filtered photos, which take up a lot of space on our iPhone are ignored.
Here’s a quick way to create exact duplicate photos on your iPhone. Open the Photos app. Long-press a picture. Tap the Duplicate button. You can repeat these steps to create more duplicates. Then go to the Utilities section in the Photos app to check if the Duplicates album shows up.
Other possible reason why Duplicates album not showing on iPhone is that you are using an older version of iOS. The Duplicates album feature is only available for devices running iOS 16 and later. So if your iPhone is still running iOS 15 or earlier, you need to update your iPhone.
First check what iOS version your iPhone is running: open the Settings app. Click General > Software Update. Here you can see your current OS version. If it is iOS 16 or later, check other fixes in this article. If not, click Update Now or Update Tonight. Enter your passcode when prompted to update your iPhone.
Note: The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, and first-generation iPhone SE cannot be updated to iOS 16 or later. To get the Duplicates album feature, you need to change your device.
If you actually have duplicate photos on your iPhone, and your iPhone is running iOS 16 or later, but the Duplicates album is still not showing, it may be because the order of photo collections in the Photos app was adjusted and the Duplicates album was hidden. You can reorder the Photos app or reset it.
The Duplicates album is under the Utilities section of the Photos app. If you can’t see Utilities, scroll down to the bottom of the Photos app. Click Customize & Reorder.
Check the box next to Utilities. Then you can see the Duplicates album shows up.
When the Optimize iPhone Storage option is enabled, iPhone stores optimized and space-saving photos in the Photos app, while keep the original photos in iCloud. However, this feature can affect the duplicate detection. If the Duplicates album not showing on your iPhone, it’s possible that the duplicate photos on your device have been optimized, your iPhone cannot detect the duplicates.
Before deleting duplicate photos on iPhone through the Duplicates album, it’s recommended to disable the Optimize iPhone Storage option. Go to Settings. Scroll down to find Apps. Choose Photos. Then choose Download and Keep Originals. Wait for your iPhone to download all original photos from iCloud. Then give it some time to detect the duplicate photos. Once successfully detected, the Duplicate album will appear.
It will take some time for your iPhone to index your photo library and find duplicates. If the Duplicates album is still not showing after trying the above fixes, be patient and wait. The waiting time depends on the number and size of photos in your photo library. The more photos you have, the longer it will take. Remember to charge your phone, as a low battery or Low Power Mode may delay or pause the detection process.
To check if Low Power Mode is on your iPhone, go to Settings. Click Battery.
What you can also try is resetting network settings. Although iPhone detects duplicate photos in the local library, it requires a stable network connection to download pictures from iCloud to the Photos app. If the network is unstable or disconnected, iCloud photos may stop syncing, which can affect the duplicates detection.
To set network settings on iPhone, open Settings > General. Click Transfer or Reset iPhone at the bottom. Click on Reset > Reset Network Settings. It will reset your saved Wi-Fi network and passwords, but not delete any of your personal data. Wait for 15 to 30 seconds and reconnect your iPhone to the network.
Now you can check again to see if the Duplicate album shows up. If still not, below are 2 more fixes.
Restarting iPhone can clear temporary files or processes that may be causing problems. Many users have reported that this way successfully solved the problem of the Duplicates album not showing. If your iPhone isn’t responding, you can force restart it.
This is the last way you can try if the Duplicates album not showing - resetting your iPhone. I still recommend you to try the above fixes and waiting for more time before resetting iPhone. Because this step will erase all the settings on your iPhone and back to factory settings. Make sure you backup your iPhone before doing this. To reset your iPhone, open the Settings app. Click General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Erase All Content and Settings. Click Continue. Enter your iPhone passcode and wait for it to erase.
Above are 8 ways to fix Duplicate albums not showing on iPhone. Hope you were able to resolve the issue with one of these fixes.
Although the Duplicates album on iPhone is useful for identifying duplicate photos, it has several limitations. First, it cannot detect all duplicates, especially near-duplicate photos, which are useless but take up much space on device. You can find that only a few duplicates showing up in the Duplicates album for you to remove. Second, the detection process is delayed. For a large photo library, it may take weeks or even months to complete the detection. Third, it only offers one option to handle the detected duplicates - Merge.
Cisdem Duplicate Finder is an easy-to-use and powerful duplicate photo finder for iPhone. It does a better job of finding and removing duplicate photos than the Duplicates album feature on iPhone. Main features of this tool:
If the Duplicates album fails to find all duplicates in your Photos app, try this tool to get the job done easily and quickly.
1. Download and install Cisdem Duplicate Finder on your iPhone.
2. Open it. Click Start Scan.
3. Wait for it to finish scanning. Click Duplicate Photos. In this tab, you can view all exact duplicate photos in your photos library on iPhone.
Click Similar Photos. In this tab, you can view and compare all the detected near-duplicate photos.
4. It has already select all but one file in each of duplicate photos for you to remove. You can also use the selection rules by clicking the Selection button in the upper right corner. Select a rule.
5. Click Clean at the bottom to remove all duplicate photos.
In summary, the Duplicates album not showing on iPhone can be caused by a variety of reasons. You can learn how to fix the issue after reading this article. Additionally, if you want to find and remove more duplicate photos efficiently, consider using the app I mentioned above.
With a passion for tech and writing, Sarah joined Cisdem, where she focuses on creating articles about using utility tools to enhance file management and simplify contact management.
