Find Duplicates: exact copies only

Why vaults collect duplicates

Copies creep in without anyone meaning to. You import a batch from Photos, then the same pictures arrive again from a chat. A transfer from your computer is interrupted and you send the folder twice. After a year, the same photo can sit in your vault three times.

Why finding them is harder in a vault

In your camera roll, two copies of a photo are two identical files. In an encrypted vault they are not. Each file gets its own random 256-bit key, and that key is sealed with your vault key. So the stored files look different even when the pictures inside are the same.

To compare files, Sealed decrypts and fingerprints only files of the same size, because two copies of one photo look different once each is encrypted with its own key.

All of that happens on your phone. Your files never leave your iPhone unless you turn on iCloud backup or export them yourself.

What counts as a duplicate

Find Duplicates compares every item in your vault byte for byte, sizes first, and finds exact copies.

That rule is strict on purpose. These are not treated as duplicates:

• Two shots taken a second apart.
• A photo and an edited copy of it.
• The same picture saved at a smaller size by a chat app.

Strict matching means a “duplicate” is always safe to remove: nothing about the picture is lost. If you want to clear near-matches too, you choose those yourself.

How to clear them

1. Open Settings in Sealed. Find Duplicates is in Sealed’s Settings, in the Library section.
2. Tap Find Duplicates, then Scan for Duplicates.
3. Look over the sets it shows, each with how many copies and their size.
4. Tap Keep Newest on one set, or clear every set at once.

For each set of identical copies, Keep Newest keeps one and moves the other copies to Recently Deleted.

Nothing you set up is lost

When copies go, the one that stays takes over what they had. The copy that stays keeps the favorite star and every stack the other copies were in.

So if you starred one copy and filed another in a stack called Trip, the photo that stays is starred and is still in Trip.

Getting a copy back

Copies the duplicate finder moves to Recently Deleted can be put back with Undo, or later from Recently Deleted. Recently Deleted keeps anything you remove for 30 days before it is gone for good.

What it leaves alone

• Locked stacks. Items in a locked stack are left out of the duplicate scan.
• Offloaded items. Items kept only in iCloud by Space Saver are skipped by Find Duplicates until you download them.
• Your camera roll. It only looks inside the vault. The move photos guide covers removing originals from Photos.

Where Sealed helps, and where it doesn’t

It helps you clear true copies in a few taps, without losing a star or a stack. The copy that stays keeps the favorite star and every stack the other copies were in.

It doesn’t do these things:

• Spot similar photos, bursts or edited versions. Find Duplicates compares every item in your vault byte for byte, sizes first, and finds exact copies.
• Check items in a locked stack. Items in a locked stack are left out of the duplicate scan.
• Work on the free plan. Sealed Pro lifts the photo limit and adds, among other things, videos, documents, notes, records, the private camera, voice memos, wireless transfer, Space Saver, the duplicate finder and video trimming. For tidying by hand, stacks keep things sorted.