Find and remove duplicate photos

Groups end up with duplicates: the same photo sent by two people, a burst of near-identical frames, or a compressed copy from a messaging app. Fika never blocks these at upload, so nothing you add is turned away. Instead, it helps you find and tidy them up afterward, whenever you like.

Open the duplicate review

When a collection contains duplicates, a Review Duplicates button appears in the filter bar at the top of that collection. Choose it to open the review, which is split into two tabs.

Exact copies

These are the same file uploaded more than once, byte for byte. Because they’re truly identical, they’re always safe to thin out. Fika suggests keeping the earliest upload and lets you move the rest to trash, where they stay recoverable for 30 days. See delete photos and restore from trash.

Look-alikes

These are different files that simply look alike: burst frames, crops, screenshots, or copies that a phone or app compressed. Choose Compare to see a set side by side and decide which to keep. Fika groups these for you, but it can’t tell why two photos resemble each other. To Fika, a run of burst frames and a compressed copy of one shot are just as similar. The call on what to keep is yours. Plenty of groups keep the burst frames they like and clear out the redundant copies, though keeping the whole set is a perfectly fine choice too. If the groupings feel too loose or too tight, you can adjust how similar photos have to be before Fika groups them together.

Look-alike grouping works on photos only, not videos.

Who can clean up

Anyone who can see the collection can open the review and look. Moving copies to trash, or setting a look-alike set aside, is available to members and admins, the same people who can delete photos. Viewers can browse the review but can’t change anything, and a locked collection can only be tidied by an owner or admin. See roles explained.

This is not the same as takedowns

Duplicate review is just housekeeping inside a collection: you decide what to keep, and it never removes anything on its own. Reporting a photo that shouldn’t be in the group at all is a separate thing, covered in report a photo.

Related

• Delete photos and restore from trash
• Understanding your storage, including how trimming copies frees up space