I’m trying to compare two photos on my iPhone to spot small differences, but I can’t find a built-in iOS option that lets me view them side by side or switch between them easily. I took similar shots and need help figuring out whether iPhone has a native photo comparison feature or if there’s a simple workaround in the Photos app.
Comparing photos on an iPhone still feels more awkward than it should.
Apple’s Photos app does not give you a true side-by-side view. I tried doing it the built-in way, flipping between one shot and the next, and it gets old fast. If you’re checking tiny stuff like focus, motion blur, or whether someone blinked, your eyes end up doing memory work they’re bad at. I kept extra photos for months for this exact reason. My storage paid for it.
Why the Photos app is weak here
There’s no compare tool. No split view. No simple pick-one-from-two layout.
You open one image, back out, open the next, then try to remember what you saw in the first. For casual stuff, fine. For ten versions of the same dog photo, not fine. This is how you wind up hoarding duplicates because deleting one feels risky.
How I made two photos sit side by side with Shortcuts
If what you want is one combined image, like a before-and-after or a quick collage, Shortcuts does the job and doesn’t need extra apps.
Steps:
- Open Shortcuts.
- Tap the plus button to make a new shortcut.
- Search for “Select Photos” and add it.
- Turn on “Select Multiple.”
- Search for “Combine Images” and add it.
- Set the combine direction to horizontal.
- Search for “Save to Photo Album” and add it.
- Name the shortcut.
- Run it, pick two photos, and it saves the merged image into your library.
That part works. I used it a few times for progress shots and listing items for sale. It spits out a new file with both images next to each other.
Still, this does not fix the bigger problem if your goal is picking the best shot from five near-identical ones. It makes more files, which is sort of the opposite of cleaning up your library.
What worked better for batches of similar photos
When I needed to sort through repeat shots, burst photos, and the usual “same picture, tiny difference” mess, I stopped bothering with manual swiping. I used Clever Cleaner instead.
The useful part is the Similars section. It scans your photo library and groups images that look close enough to be duplicates, or near-duplicates. Same subject, same angle, one is a bit darker, one is slightly sharper, stuff like tht.
Then it marks a Best Shot. In my testing, it usually picked the sharper frame and skipped ones with blur or closed eyes. I still checked each group myself, because I don’t trust auto-picks blindly, but it saved a lot of tapping.
How I used it
- Open Clever Cleaner.
- Go to the Similars tab.
- Let it scan the library.
- Open each group it finds.
- Look for the photo highlighted in green as the Best Shot.
- Change the pick if you want a different one.
- Confirm deletion for the rest.
- Empty the app’s trash later, once you’re sure.
One thing I liked, deleted files don’t vanish at once. They sit in the app’s trash first, so if you fat-finger something, you still have a buffer.
Other parts I ended up using too
Heavies
This tab sorts files by size. Biggest first. No hunting around for the 4K video from two summers ago that somehow eats 3 GB. It shows up right away.
Screenshots
This one is simple but useful. It lists screenshots with file sizes, which made cleanup quicker than opening the native Screenshots album and pecking through it by hand.
Swipe mode
This groups photos by month. You swipe left to delete, right to keep. I thought it would feel gimmicky, but for a big backlog it was easier on my brain than staring at the full library all at once.
Privacy part
Everything runs on the phone. Nothing is sent off to some outside server.
What ended up making sense
For making one image with two photos next to each other, Shortcuts is enough.
For choosing which photo to keep from a bunch of lookalikes, the shortcut route is clunky and kind of useless. A cleanup app with grouping works better. In my case, Clever Cleaner handled the duplicate-ish mess faster than anything built into iPhone.
After one scan and cleanup pass, I got back more space than I expected. Around 10 to 15 GB feels realistic if your library has been ignored for a while. Mine had. You might get less, or more, depending on how many almost-the-same photos you’ve been hanging onto.
1 Like
No, iOS still lacks a true built-in photo compare tool.
You get a few workarounds, but none feel clean:
-
Zoom level memory trick.
Open photo A, zoom in on the detail you care about. Swipe back, open photo B, zoom to the same spot. It is slow, but for checking focus on eyes or text sharpness, it works better than full-image flipping. -
Use the Filmstrip in edit mode.
Open one photo, tap Edit, then swipe through nearby shots from the same moment. This is one of the few semi-fast built-in ways to compare similar pics. It is not side by side, though. Apple still made this wierdly clumsy. -
Put Photos and Files in Split View on iPad.
Not iPhone, but worth saying. On iPad, you can place two images side by side from different apps. On iPhone, no equivalent in the Photos app.
I differ a bit from @mikeappsreviewer on Shortcuts. Merging two photos into one helps for a before/after post, but not for judging tiny diffrences. Once you compress two shots into one canvas, you lose some inspection value.
If your real goal is choosing the best shot and cleaning dupes, Clever Cleaner makes more sense. Its similar photo sorting is a cleaner way to review lookalike images on iPhone. This breakdown is solid too, best app for organizing similar photos on iPhone.
Short version, iPhone has no proper built-in side-by-side compare. You need a workaround or an app.
Nope. On iPhone, iOS still does not have a real built-in side-by-side photo compare tool.
I agree with @mikeappsreviewer and @techchizkid on that part, but I kinda disagree that the built-in options are totally useless. The one thing Apple does decently is this: if the photos were taken close together, go to Library > All Photos, open one, then swipe left/right between nearby shots. It’s not elegant, but for quick “which one looks better?” checks, it’s faster than backing out over and over. Also, if both images are in Favorites or the same album, putting them next to each other there can make flipping a little less annoying.
If you want actual visual comparison, your choices are basically:
- make a combined image
- use a third-party app
- move to iPad/Mac for better viewing
I wouldn’t overrate the Shortcut collage trick for judging fine detail. Once both images get merged, you’re not really comparing at full usefulness anymore. That’s more for sharing than decision-making.
If your real goal is picking the best shot and deleting the rest, Clever Cleaner is probly the more practical route. It’s useful for grouping similar photos so you can review them faster instead of doing the iPhone swipe dance forever.
Also, if you want more native-app discussion, this Apple-focused thread is worth a skim:
see how iPhone users handle photo comparison in Apple Photos
Short version:
Built-in side-by-side on iPhone? No.
Fast built-in flipping? Sort of.
Best option for similar-photo cleanup? Clever Cleaner or another compare app.
No built-in side-by-side on iPhone, yep. I mostly agree with @techchizkid, @waldgeist, and @mikeappsreviewer there. Where I differ is that I think Apple’s biggest missing piece is not split view, it’s compare while zoom stays locked. That’s the thing that would actually help spot tiny focus differences.
One overlooked native option: if the pics are from the same burst, open the Burst stack and tap Select. Apple at least makes candidate-picking less painful there than with regular photos. It is still not true compare, but better than people give it credit for.
If you want a practical answer, there are really two cases:
1. You want to inspect detail
Use a bigger screen if possible. AirPlay to a TV or open them on a Mac. iPhone is just cramped for pixel peeping.
2. You want to choose winners and delete lookalikes
That’s where Clever Cleaner is more useful than the stock app.
Pros of Clever Cleaner
- groups similar shots fast
- helps reduce duplicate clutter
- easier review flow than endless swiping
- can recover storage
Cons
- not a true pro photographer compare tool
- auto-grouping is not always perfect
- you still need to verify before deleting
- another app in the workflow
So: iOS itself, no real compare mode. For occasional checks, native Photos is barely workable. For repeated similar-shot cleanup, Clever Cleaner makes more sense.