Delete hundreds of duplicate photos in one tap, then find any picture just by describing it

I remember my parents saying, “Kim, stop wasting the film.” Back then, you got 36 shots a roll and waited days to see if any were keepers.

Now we fire off 20 a day without blinking. (Guilty. See my triple selfie above.) Let’s clean up the mess and make finding the good ones easy. Perfect weekend project.

🧼 Dump the duplicates

Quick note: I tested these on my own gear. Your screens might look a little different depending on your phone, model or software (or planetary alignment). Poke around. You’ll find what you need.

• iPhone: Update first. Open Photos, tap Collections, scroll to Utilities and tap Duplicates. Hit Select > Select All > Merge. Photos keeps the best-quality copy and tosses the rest into Recently Deleted for 30 days. When I first did this, I had 329 duplicate photos and eight videos.
• iPad and Mac: Same idea, but you’ll find Duplicates under Utilities in the sidebar. On a Mac, press Command-A to grab them all, then click Merge.
• Google Photos: There’s no one-tap duplicate button. Select the extras and tap Delete. Got thousands? Clean up the copies on your phone or computer first, so they never back up in the first place.
• Windows: No built-in finder, but you can grab the free version of Duplicate Cleaner. It scans by size and content. Want it to catch look-alike photos, too? That takes the Pro version, which has a seven-day free trial. Review the list before you delete, so you don’t zap a keeper.

Finally, a merge nobody honks at.

🗣️ Stop scrolling, just ask

iPhone: Open Photos and go to the Search tab. Tap the microphone on your keyboard and describe it like you’d tell a friend: “Barry on the boat at sunset.” That kind of detailed search needs Apple Intelligence, which runs on an iPhone 15 Pro or newer.

Google Photos: Tap Ask at the bottom of the app. Say or type something like, “Show me the best photo from each beach trip.” Gemini reads what’s in your pictures, even the writing on a birthday cake.

FYI, older phone? One or two words like “dog” or “receipt” work.

I saw a long stick of bread posing for a photo. It must have been a roll model. (That one even hurt me as I wrote it.)

🗣️ Text/post this stat: The average American takes 20 photos a day, and you can find any one of yours just by describing it out loud. Get more tips like this free at GetKim.com.

📩 Send this to someone who scrolls for five minutes to show you one picture of their dog.