Keptby Gnilebat Labs
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How to find and delete duplicate photos on Android

Duplicates come from retakes, bursts, edited copies and photos saved twice from chats. Here’s how to clear them without losing the good one.

Updated 6 min read
Short answer

For exact copies, use the duplicate finder that’s already on your phone: Files by Google or, on Samsung, the Gallery’s clean-out suggestions. For near-identical shots like retakes and bursts you need a tool that compares what’s in the photos, and keeps the sharpest one.

Where duplicates come from

  • Retakes and bursts: five tries for one group photo, or a burst of twenty frames.
  • Edited copies: many editors save the edit next to the original.
  • Chats: the same photo saved again from WhatsApp, or sent to you by three people.
  • Downloads and restores: a folder copied twice when moving to a new phone.

Exact copies vs. similar shots

An exact copy is the same file twice. Built-in tools find these reliably. A similar shot is a different file of the same moment: a retake, the next burst frame, a resized or slightly cropped version. Built-in duplicate finders look for identical files, so they miss these, and they’re usually the bigger pile.

The built-in ways

Files by Google (any Android phone)

  1. Open Files by Google and tap ☰ → Clean.
  2. Find the Duplicate files card. The originals are marked “Original”.
  3. Tap Select files, choose the copies and move them to the trash.

Samsung Gallery

  1. In Gallery, tap ≡, then Clean out → Delete duplicate pictures.
  2. Tap Delete duplicates. Samsung keeps the originals. If there are no exact copies, the option doesn’t show up.

Samsung also lists Duplicate files under Settings → Device care → Storage. And the Gallery groups similar images automatically, with a number on the thumbnail, so you can open a group and delete the extra shots by hand.

Google Photos

Google Photos has no duplicate finder. It can group near-identical photos taken together into stacks (⋮ → Stack similar photos in the Photos view, backup must be on), with a top pick on the cover. Careful: moving a stack to the trash trashes every photo in it, so open the stack and delete the extras one by one.

Picking the one to keep

  • Zoom in on faces: open eyes and sharp focus beat a nicer crop.
  • Keep the original over an edited copy unless you prefer the edit.
  • Favourites stay. If you hearted one of the shots, that’s probably your keeper.

Find similar shots with Kept

  1. Open Find similar photos on Kept’s home screen. Kept compares shape and colour, so retakes, bursts and resized copies end up in the same group.
  2. Move the Tight/Loose slider to choose how alike photos must be.
  3. In every group Kept marks the sharpest shot. Tap Keep 1 · delete 2, or pick another photo to keep.
  4. Short on time? Keep best in all does it for every group at once. The folder icon lets you work through one album at a time.
  5. Review the pile and delete it in one batch.
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A group of similar photos in Kept with the sharpest one marked

Favourites and photos you protect in Kept are never deleted by Find similar. The same works for videos: Similar videos finds copies and retakes of the same clip.