How to find similar and burst photos in iCloud Photos

iCloud Photos has two built-in helpers, and neither finds similar shots for you. The Duplicates album, in Photos on iPhone, iPad and Mac, catches exact copies and near-identical versions of the same image. The Bursts album lists burst sequences, and for each one you can pick the frames you like and discard the rest. What neither does is look at five separate shots of the same moment and suggest the best one. For that you either compare by hand, month by month, or use a tool that groups similar shots and bursts, suggests a best shot, and lets you review every set before anything is deleted.

Three kinds of doubles

It helps to separate three things that all look like "the same photo" in the grid.

• Exact duplicates. The same image more than once: a WhatsApp copy, a second import, a re-saved download. Removing one loses nothing.
• Similar shots. Separate photos taken seconds apart. Someone blinks in one, the horizon is crooked in another. They are different photos, and the choice of which to keep is yours.
• Bursts. A rapid sequence taken by holding or sliding the shutter. On iPhone these are grouped into one burst stack that shows as a single thumbnail, but every frame is stored.

Exact duplicates are the easy part. Similar shots and bursts are where most of the extra space hides in a library full of children, pets and holidays.

What Apple's Photos app can and cannot do

The Duplicates album

On iPhone and iPad (iOS 16 or later) and on Mac (macOS Ventura or later), Photos has a Duplicates album under Utilities. Apple describes two kinds of match: exact copies that differ only in metadata, and photos that look the same but differ in resolution, file format or other slight details. You merge each set, Photos keeps the best-quality version, and the rest go to Recently Deleted.

It is worth doing first. But "appear to be the same" is the key phrase. A group shot taken twice, with a different expression in each, is not a duplicate to Apple, so it stays.

The Bursts album

Bursts appear in the Bursts album under Media Types. To trim one on iPhone or iPad:

1. Open the burst and tap Select.
2. Swipe through the frames and tap each one you want to keep, so it gets a tick.
3. Tap Done.
4. Choose Keep Only Favourites to keep the ticked frames and move the others to Recently Deleted, or Keep Everything to keep all of them as separate photos.

On a Mac, open the burst, click Make a Selection, choose the frames, then Keep Only Selection. The unselected frames go to Recently Deleted.

This works well, one burst at a time. With hundreds of bursts it gets slow, and there is no suggestion of which frame is best; you choose each one yourself.

What is missing

• No similar-shot grouping outside bursts and duplicates.
• No suggestion of the best shot in a set.
• No Duplicates album on icloud.com or in iCloud for Windows at the time of writing, so on a PC there is no built-in help at all.

Manual method: find similar shots by hand

This is free and fine for a few events.

1. On a computer, open icloud.com/photos, or Photos on a Mac. A large grid is much easier to compare than a phone screen.
2. Go to a period you know is crowded: a holiday, a birthday, the first weeks with a new baby.
3. Look for runs of photos that are nearly the same. They sit together because they share a capture time.
4. Open the candidates at full size. Thumbnails hide blinks and soft focus.
5. Select the ones you do not want (Command-click on a Mac, Ctrl-click on Windows) and delete them. They go to Recently Deleted for 30 days.
6. Move on to the next period.

The difficulty is scale. A library of 20,000 photos can hold thousands of similar sets, and each one needs a few seconds of real attention.

Automated method: let a tool compare for you

A similar-photo tool compares every photo with its neighbours, groups the ones that look alike, and proposes which to keep. You then review the groups rather than the whole library.

Doppelgone does this for iCloud Photos from a computer. It runs in Chrome on a Mac or PC and uses the icloud.com session you are already signed in to. It sorts what it finds into exact duplicates, similar shots and bursts, marks a suggested best shot in each set, and shows every set so you can choose a different photo or skip the set entirely. Nothing is removed until you approve; the photos you approve go to Recently Deleted, and there is an Undo.

A few things it deliberately leaves alone: favourites are never removed, photos you edited in Photos are protected, Hidden photos are left out of the scan, and videos are not part of clean-ups yet. The analysis happens on your own computer; photos are not uploaded to Doppelgone. It works on your personal library.

How tools judge the "best shot"

Whatever does the choosing, a person or a tool, the same few signals decide it.

• Sharpness. Motion blur and missed focus are the most common reason to drop a frame.
• Eyes. In photos of people, open eyes matter more than almost anything else.
• Exposure. A frame that is not too dark or blown out.
• Framing. Nobody cut off at the edge, the horizon straight.

A good suggestion is right most of the time. The point of reviewing is to catch the times it is not: the frame with the funny face that you actually want, or the softer shot with the better moment.

Keeping the right one

• For bursts, one or two frames is almost always enough.
• For similar shots of people, keep the one where everyone looks like themselves.
• If one photo in a set is an edit you made, think about whether you want the edit or the original.
• If two are equally good, keep both. A wrong deletion costs more than a few megabytes.
• Mark favourites as you go. They are a clear record of what you chose to keep, and careful tools leave them alone.

Why bursts take up so much space

Each frame in a burst is a full photo. A one-second burst can be ten frames, and the stack only shows one thumbnail, so it is easy to forget that the other nine are there. A few hundred bursts from years of birthdays and sports days can easily add up to a gigabyte or more, which matters a great deal on a 5 GB plan. Trimming them is one of the most effective things you can do for freeing up iCloud storage without paying.

Frequently asked questions

Does iCloud Photos have a similar photo finder?

Not as such. The Duplicates album in Photos on iPhone, iPad and Mac finds exact copies and near-identical versions of the same image, and the Bursts album lets you trim each burst. Neither groups separate similar shots or suggests a best shot.

Do burst photos take up iCloud storage?

Yes. A burst shows as a single thumbnail, but every frame in it is stored and counts toward your iCloud storage. Keeping only your favourite frames moves the rest to Recently Deleted.

What is the difference between a duplicate and a similar photo?

A duplicate is the same image more than once, so deleting a copy loses nothing. A similar photo is a separate shot of the same moment, with its own expression, focus and framing. Similar photos need a decision about which to keep.

Can I find similar photos on icloud.com?

You can compare them by hand in the icloud.com grid, which works in any browser on a Mac or PC. Apple's Duplicates album is not available there at the time of writing. A browser tool that works with icloud.com can group them for you.

What to do next

Start with the Bursts album on your iPhone and trim the five biggest bursts; it shows quickly how much space they hold. Then merge the Duplicates album. For the similar shots that remain, try Doppelgone on one scan and review the sets it suggests; the free plan covers 200 photos per browser, and Pro is a one-time payment. The step-by-step for duplicates is in how to delete duplicate photos in iCloud Photos, and the Google Photos version of this guide is find similar and burst photos in Google Photos.