THE Easiest Way to Declutter the Mess of Pictures on Your Phone

Whether you're on vacation, celebrating a special occasion or capturing something simple in your day-to-day life, you probably take MULTIPLE pictures of any given moment. 

Not only do smartphone cameras make this incredibly easy but it also increases the chance you will end up with at least ONE great photo... hopefully where everyone is looking and smiling! At the very least, having multiple copies will give you options when posting to social media, ordering prints or creating holiday cards at the end of the year! 

However, this also means you probably have hundreds of DUPLICATES on your phone! This can create digital clutter and make it incredibly challenging to find any "one" photo when you need it in a pinch!

Taking time to delete duplicates, even a couple times a year, will help you clean up your photo stream and make the pictures on your phone so much easier to navigate!

How to Delete Duplicates:

Apple Users

• Open the Apple Photos app from your phone 
• Click "Albums" from the menu at the bottom of your screen
• Scroll down to the "Utilities" section and click on "Duplicates"
• You can merge the duplicates one set at a time by going row by row OR you can merge all of your duplicates in one batch by following the next few steps below:
• Click "Select" in the top right corner
• Click "Select All" in the top left corner
• Click Merge "#" at the bottom of your screen
• Choose either "Merge # Exact Copies Only" OR "Merge # items" to clean up ALL duplicates (Pick whatever you're most comfortable with. I merge all because it helps me quickly clean up my photos.) 

Once you delete duplicates, this section won't show up under Utilities until Apple Photos detects new duplicate photos in the future. 

Google Photos Users  

1. Open Google Photos from your phone 
2. Click "Photos" at the bottom of your screen
3. Scroll through and find multiple copies one set at a time
4. Unfortunatley, you will have to manually delete duplicates 

The best part? You can delete duplicates while waiting in line at the store, watching a show or sitting at your kid's game! All it takes is a little bit of time to START tackling the mess of digital pictures on your phone!

All the best,
Melissa