How to clean up photos before upgrading your iPhone

Why bother before you upgrade

Quick Start moves your whole library to the new iPhone over a direct connection between the two phones. Everything that goes along, duplicates, old screenshots, oversized videos, takes time to copy and space to land on the new device. Clearing it first makes the move quicker and starts the new iPhone with a lighter library.

Check what you have

Open Settings, General, iPhone Storage. The Photos row shows the total size of your library. If you use iCloud Photos, open Settings, your name, iCloud, Photos and make sure syncing is finished, so nothing is sitting only on the old phone.

Built-in ways to shrink the library first

1. Open Photos, scroll to Utilities, tap Duplicates. Review the pairs it found and tap Merge on each, or Select All then Merge.
2. In Utilities, open Screenshots and delete the ones you no longer need.
3. Open Utilities, Recently Deleted, and tap Delete All. Items sit there for 30 days by default and still count against storage until you empty it.

This clears exact duplicates and screenshots, but it does not group near identical shots taken seconds apart, and it will not tell you which videos are the heaviest.

A free scan in Poof

Poof reads the whole library in one pass, on the device, and groups what is taking the space.

1. Open Poof and allow access to your photos. Nothing is uploaded.
2. Open Duplicates to see every exact copy, free to clear.
3. Poof Pro groups near identical shots so you keep the sharpest of each burst, finds blurry photos, and lists your biggest videos so you can compress them to 1080p, 720p or 540p before the move. You see the size before and after, and the original stays until you approve the swap.

Reviewing this before Quick Start means the new iPhone starts with a library that is actually worth the space it takes.

One more thing before you hand over the old phone

If you are trading in or giving away the old iPhone, do the full cleanup first, confirm the new iPhone has everything you need, then use Settings, General, Transfer or Reset iPhone, Erase All Content and Settings on the old one. Erasing it does not undo a transfer that already finished.

Related guides

• iPhone storage full because of photos: what to clear first
• How to delete duplicate photos on an iPhone
• How to compress videos on an iPhone without losing the original

Questions

Does cleaning up photos make the transfer to a new iPhone faster?

Yes. Quick Start copies the whole library over a direct connection between the two phones, so fewer and smaller files move in less time.

Do I need iCloud storage to move photos to a new iPhone?

No. Quick Start transfers directly from the old iPhone to the new one over Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It does not use iCloud, so you do not need an iCloud storage plan to do it.

If I delete a photo before transferring, does it come back from iCloud?

Not if iCloud Photos is on. Once the delete syncs, the photo is gone from iCloud too and will not appear on the new iPhone. Clean up before you transfer, not after.

Is the Poof scan free to use before an upgrade?

Yes. The scan and deleting every exact copy of a photo or a video are free. Similar shots, screenshots and video compression are part of Poof Pro.