Free up storage space and declutter your iPhone with Gemini Photos

If you're like me, you've not given a lot of thought to curating your iPhone photo library. In fact, whenever I look at mine I'm horrified at how many duplicates images, blurry captures, and screenshots that I no longer need that I have filling up my precious storage space.

I could go through my photos manually and sort them out, but let's face it, if that was going to happen, it would have already happened.

Fortunately, there's an app that will do all the hard work for me.

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Enter Gemini Photos by MacPaw. The app uses what MacPaw describes as "a smart machine learning algorithm" to scan the iPhone photo library for duplicate photos, blurred photos, screenshots, and photos of text such as documents, receipts and whiteboard notes. Where a number of similar photos exist, the app finds what it considers to be the best capture in the set to allow the user a quick way of removing the rest.

The app works both locally on the iPhone's storage space and also on the user's iCloud Library, helping to clear space there too.

Gemini Photos for iPhone

So, does it work? In a word, yes. But you do have to be a little careful.

One place that Gemini Photos really shines it its ability to identify similar photos. These may have been separate shots taken of the same thing, or burst taken using the Camera app. Either way, it's good to have a way to see them all that doesn't involve scrolling endlessly through the Photo library.

However, bear in mind that "similar" doesn't mean "identical," and that you might want to keep different versions of a photo that the app considers to be similar. While for many this is probably a non-issue, and Gemini Photos does seem to be eerily good at picking the best shot from a bunch, it's still worth bearing in mind.

While Gemini Photos is excellent at identifying "clutter" in the form of blurred images, notes, and screenshots, there are a few things worth thinking about:

• Some of the blurred images the app picked up on were of clouds and mist, and not technically "blurry" shots
• The app sometimes picked up on text in what was otherwise a photo and labeled it as a note
• Bear in mind that you might not want all your notes or screenshots deleted

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that while Gemini Photos takes the stress out of scanning your library, and does what I believe to be an excellent job of sorting the wheat from the chaff, you do still have to think a little, and not just blindly start deleting stuff.

The feature that allows the detection and removal of clutter (screenshots, blurred photos, and photos of text) is a free feature, while similar photos detection and removal is a premium option priced as follows (after a 3-day free trial period):

• $1.99/month
• $11.99/year
• $14.99 -- one-time payment

All-in-all, I think that Gemini Photos is a great app. Whether you need it really comes down to how much of a mess your photo library is in, and how crushed you are for space.

Download link.

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