I’m trying to choose the best shot from several similar iPhone photos before I start editing, but I can’t find an easy way to view them side by side in the Photos app. I ended up making edits on the wrong image and wasted time, so I need help figuring out the fastest way to compare pictures on iPhone before editing.
I ran into the same mess. You take six shots of the same thing, then later you try to compare them in Photos and the whole process feels dumb. I kept flipping between images, trying to remember which one had better focus, which one had someone blinking, which one had less blur. After a few minutes I usually gave up and kept all of them. Then my phone filled up. Predictable.
If you want to stay inside Apple’s own tools, there is one workaround. It lives in the Shortcuts app, not Photos, which still feels like a weird choice.
Open Shortcuts. Tap the plus button. Add the action called ‘Select Photos’ and turn on multiple selection. After thta, add ‘Combine Images.’ Pick horizontal or vertical. Then add ‘Save to Photos.’ When you run it, you choose two images and it creates one combined file in your library.
For a quick side by side, it does the job. If you need a before and after pic, or you want to line up two versions of the same photo, fine. For sorting a messy library, no. I tried doing cleanup this way and got annoyed fast.
I avoided cleanup apps for a long time because most of them felt shady. The pattern was always the same. Free download, then a paywall the second you tried to remove anything. Or endless ads. Or both.
A while back I found Clever Cleaner, and it worked better than I expected. I kept waiting for the catch. I didn’t hit one. No ads, no locked cleanup button, no weekly subscription popping out of nowhere. It’s from the Disk Drill people, which gave me a bit more trust than the random cleaner apps I’d already deleted.
The part I used most was the Similars section. It groups photos which are close matches, not only exact duplicates. So if you took a burst of your dog moving half an inch between shots, it puts those together. It also marks a best shot on its own. I didn’t agree every time, but most of the time it was close enough. I’d say around 95 percent from what I saw, which is better than I expected from a free app.
What made it useful for me was speed. You open a group, compare the photos in one place, keep the good one, dump the rest. No constant back and forth in the camera roll. No mental gymnastics.
A few parts stood out.
The Heavies tab helped more than I expected. It sorts your media by file size, biggest first. I found old videos sitting there at 1 GB, 2 GB, sometimes more. Stuff I forgot existed.
There’s also a swipe mode. If you don’t want the app making choices, you sort month by month and swipe to keep or delete. Sounds gimmicky. Still, I ended up using it while waiting in line and cleared a pile of screenshots.
It shows exact file sizes too. I liked seeing the real number beside each video or screenshot. Makes it easier to decide when one random screen recording is eating 800 MB for no good reason.
Privacy mattered to me most. From what I saw, the AI work stays on the phone. Your photos aren’t being pushed to some server first. For private albums, family pics, personal stuff, that was a big deal for me.
One feature I didn’t expect to care about was Live Photos cleanup. Those tiny motion clips add up. The app strips the motion part and keeps the still image, which saves space without fully losing the photo. If your library is packed with Live Photos, you’ll notice the difference pretty quick.
So, short version. If you need to place two photos side by side one time, use Shortcuts. If you’re trying to sort duplicates, compare similar shots, and get storage back without fighting your phone, Clever Cleaner was the least annoying option I found. I used it, it cleaned up a lot, and for once the app did what it said.
2 Likes
Photos on iPhone still does not give you a true side by side compare view. That part is annoyngly limited.
I’d skip the Shortcuts route @mikeappsreviewer mentioned unless you want a one-off comparison file. It adds extra images to your library, which makes cleanup worse.
What works better for picking the best shot before editing:
-
Use Favorites as a holding bin.
Open each similar photo, swipe up, check sharpness, exposure, and faces. Favorite the top 2 or 3. Then open the Favorites album and compare fewer shots. Slower than desktop, but less messy. -
Use burst tools if these came from Burst mode.
Open the burst, tap Select, and iPhone shows tiny dots under frames it thinks are best. It is not perfect, bt it cuts review time a lot. -
Duplicate before editing.
If you keep editing the wrong file, duplicate your finalist first. Then edit the copy. Original stays untouched. -
If your library is crowded, use Clever Cleaner.
Its similar-photo grouping is more useful than Apple Photos for this job. You review near-matches together and keep the best one fast.
If you want a clean guide for putting two pictures side by side on iPhone, this helps:
how to put two pictures side by side on iPhone
Best fix is still third-party help. Apple’s Photos app is weirdly behind here.
Photos on iPhone still doesn’t really do true side-by-side compare, which is kinda ridiculous in 2026, but here we are.
I’d actually push back a little on @mikeappsreviewer and @byteguru: if your main goal is choosing the best shot before editing, don’t create combined images first unless you absolutely need a visual collage. That solves the wrong problem and adds more clutter.
What works better for me:
- Open the first photo and tap Edit, but do not save anything
- Swipe through similar shots while watching for focus, skin detail, and exposure
- Screenshot the two finalists if you need a fast temporary side-by-side reference
- Delete the screenshot after you decide
That sounds dumb, but it’s weirdly faster than bouncing around menus.
Also, use the zoom trick. Pinch into the same area on each photo, like eyes or text or hair detail, and compare sharpness there. Full-image view can be deceiving.
If your library is crowded, Clever Cleaner is more practical because it groups lookalike photos into easy review sets and helps you spot the best image faster. That’s more useful than Apple Photos if you shoot a lot. This guide to cleaning up similar iPhone photos and duplicates explains it pretty well.
So yeah, no native side-by-side in Photos, annoyngly. Best no-mess option is compare finalists manually, then edit only after you’ve favorited or duplicated the keeper.
