Apple explains why some are not seeing the new Duplicates folder on iOS 16

Apple rolled out iOS 16 on September 12, which was just a few days before the release of the iPhone 14 series, and it included several new features and little tweaks. One of these new features was a neat way for users to deal with duplicate photos.

The feature allows you to delete the duplicates, or merge them. The latter picks the photo with better quality while combining any captions, keywords, and favorites into one file.

Usually, a Duplicates album should appear under the Utilities section, which you can find by scrolling down in the Albums tab. However, there have been some people who, despite updating to iOS 16, have yet to see a Duplicates section appear.



Thankfully, Apple just came out with a support document where it is explained why some are not seeing the new option in their Photos app, as well as how the feature works and what you can do to make it appear. (via MacRumors)

It appears certain conditions must first be met before the new Duplicates album shows up. First, the iPhone has to index all of the images in your photo library, and then determine which are duplicates of each other. The crucial detail here is that in order to go through these steps, your iPhone has to be locked and charging.

Apple says that the amount of time it would take for your iPhone to finish this process depends on the type and number of tasks that are already running and the size of your photo library. In some cases, it could even take several days before you see the Duplicates album come up. It is probably worth mentioning that if no duplicate photos are discovered, the album will simply not show.

The good news is that the Duplicates feature that comes with iOS 16 works, and it not showing up is not some kind of bug.