Gallery Audit support and FAQ

Gallery Audit is an iPhone app that rates the photos in a date range you pick as Keeper, Mid or Discard, with a reason for each. It groups near-identical shots and picks the best ones, groups your photos into trips and shows how much space you can free up. Then you review the results, clear what you don't need in one confirmed batch and, with Gallery Audit Pro, save your best shots as albums.

An iPhone running iOS 26 or later. Gallery Audit is made for iPhone: there's no Android version, and no separate iPad or Mac version.

It's coming soon to the App Store, and we haven't announced a launch date yet. Join the waitlist and we'll email you once when it launches, then delete your address.

Yes. If “Optimize iPhone Storage” is on, some full-size photos are stored only in iCloud. The app downloads them as it needs them, so an audit can be slower and use mobile data. Deleting works the way it does in Photos: with iCloud Photos on, a photo you delete is also removed from your other devices, and from everyone's library if it's in a Shared Library.

Keep Gallery Audit open until the audit finishes. The screen stays on by itself while an audit runs, so auto-lock won't pause it, and normal auto-lock comes back once it's done. How long an audit takes depends on how many photos are in the range, and on downloads from iCloud if “Optimize iPhone Storage” is on.

Not to rate them: Gallery Audit only rates photos. Instead, the Videos screen lists the videos in the range, largest first by default or newest first. You can filter it to screen recordings, clips under 5 seconds or over 5 minutes, slo-mo, 4K and higher, time-lapse or Cinematic, or to one trip, and see how much space the filtered list takes. You can play any video, and select several (or swipe one) to delete after a confirmation. Favorites can't be selected, videos are never part of Free Up Space, and deleted videos usually stay in Recently Deleted for 30 days.

Yes. In the Photos app, select the photos, tap Share and choose Gallery Audit (scroll the row of apps or tap More if you don't see it). Gallery Audit opens and audits just those photos: it groups the look-alikes, rates each one and shows which are worth clearing. Videos in the selection are skipped, trips aren't worked out for a handful of photos, and the audit isn't added to Recent Audits. Nothing leaves your iPhone.

Yes. On an audit's photo grid, type in the search field to find photos by year, month, country or region, kind of photo (like Selfies or Group Photos), Favorites or Similar Shots. Each suggestion shows how many photos it would find, and you can combine several. With Gallery Audit Pro, Create Album saves what you found as an album, named after the search.

It will be free to download, and audits are free: every verdict, Similar Shots, trips, videos, search and Recent Audits. The free version deletes 50 photos and videos to start, then 20 more each day, up to 50 at a time. Gallery Audit Pro removes the limit.

Pro deletes as many photos and videos as you like, saves albums in Photos (a trip's best shots, a rating or a search), extends a saved audit to new dates and unlocks Audit Options.

• Yearly: a subscription, billed once a year
• Monthly: a subscription, billed every month
• One-time purchase: pay once, no subscription

Prices vary by country, and the App Store shows yours in your currency before you buy. Every plan unlocks the same Pro. Subscriptions renew automatically unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the period. See pricing and Apple's Terms of Use.

Purchases are tied to your Apple Account, not to an account with us. To restore Pro on a new iPhone or after reinstalling, open About in Gallery Audit and tap Restore Purchases. Redeem Code is there too.

To cancel a subscription, tap Manage Subscription in About, or open Settings, tap your name, then Subscriptions. Cancel at least 24 hours before it renews; Pro stays on until the end of the period you paid for. Refunds are handled by Apple: request one at reportaproblem.apple.com.

Two settings under About, part of Gallery Audit Pro, that apply to your next audit. Analysis: Faster, Standard or Detailed. Detailed looks at bigger images and takes longer. Grouping: Stricter, Standard or Looser. Stricter only groups very close look-alikes, Looser groups more. Without Pro, audits use Standard for both.

Keeper: a strong photo, and one of the best of its group of similar shots. Mid: nothing wrong with it, but nothing special. Discard: a likely candidate for deletion.

A photo is only marked Discard for a clear reason: it's badly blurred or exposed, a clearly better version of the same moment exists, or it's one of a trip's weakest shots, clearly below the rest of it. A low “aesthetic” score on its own never marks a photo Discard.

Sharpness, exposure and lens smudges, plus Apple's on-device aesthetics score. It also recognizes what kind of photo it is (a selfie, portrait, group shot, person, close-up or landscape) and judges it accordingly. For example, it knows that a portrait with a blurred background isn't a blurry photo, and it gives landscapes credit for a level horizon and good composition. All of this runs on your iPhone.

Burst photos are grouped automatically. Other photos taken within a few minutes of each other that look alike are grouped too. In each group, the best shots are kept (one for small groups, up to three for large ones, plus any Favorites in the group) and the rest are marked as extras, which you can review and clear from Similar Shots. Each group is named for what's in it, like “9 Group Photos”. If a group has a photo you've marked as a Favorite, or the shot iPhone picked as the best of a burst, that photo is never marked Discard.

Gallery Audit analyzes every photo in depth: sharpness, exposure, lens smudges, faces, composition, and how each shot compares with others from the same moment. Taste is personal, though, and in some cases you might choose a different one. Nothing is deleted until you review and confirm it, Favorites are always kept, and deleted photos usually stay in Recently Deleted for 30 days.

Gallery Audit uses your photos' location and date. It treats the area where you took photos on the most days in the selected range as home. Runs of days spent away from home become a trip, even if the trip covered several countries. Days in another region of your own country (or far from home) count too, and show up as domestic trips, apart from the ones abroad. Countries and regions are worked out on your iPhone from a built-in map of borders. In each trip, photos in the lowest-scoring 20% that score clearly below the trip's typical photo are marked Discard, so a trip full of good shots loses fewer. Tap a trip to see its best shots and, with Pro, save them as an album. Trips across your whole library also show as flags on the start screen's timeline, even before your first audit: tap one to pick that trip's days. The country it treats as home is shown after each audit, so you can check it. Photos without location data can't be placed in a trip. For the best results, pick a range that includes plenty of time at home.

No. Nothing is deleted until you open Free Up Space, tick what to clear (Discards, screenshots and documents, extras from similar shots, or Mid photos) and confirm. Keepers are never included. Deleted photos go to Recently Deleted in the Photos app, where you can usually recover them for 30 days (if your iCloud storage is full, iOS deletes them right away).

Yes, with Gallery Audit Pro. Pick a trip, a rating such as Keepers, or a search, and tap Create Album. Gallery Audit suggests a name, like “Best of Spain → Andorra → France 2025”, which you can change. It works for Discards too, if you'd rather look through them in Photos before deleting anything. The album only points to photos already in your library. Nothing is copied, moved or deleted, and deleting the album later doesn't delete its photos.

Open the Photos app, tap Collections, scroll to Utilities and open Recently Deleted (unlock it with Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode). Tap Select, choose the photos, then tap the More button and Recover. This works for 30 days after deletion (Apple's guide). If your iCloud storage was full when you deleted them, iOS deleted them right away and they won't be there.

Yes. Any photo you've marked as a Favorite in Photos is always rated Keeper and never suggested for deletion.

No. All analysis runs on your iPhone, including working out which countries your trips were in, and the app has no account. It only goes online to download full-size photos from your own iCloud Photos library, to reach the App Store for Gallery Audit Pro and, if you turn them on, to send usage stats that aren't linked to you (see below). See the Privacy Policy for details.

It needs to read photos to score them, and permission to change your library for the two things you can ask it to do: create an album and delete the photos you choose. You can give it access to only some photos. It will then audit only those. You can change this at any time in Settings → Privacy & Security → Photos.

Yes. Your last five audits are saved on your iPhone and listed under Recent Audits on the start screen. Tap one to pick up where you left off without running it again. Photos you've deleted since drop out, and photos you've edited are scored again. Pin up to three audits to keep them: pinned audits are listed first and never make way for a newer one.

Photos taken since aren't included. Run Again audits the same dates from scratch, and with Gallery Audit Pro, Extend Range widens an audit, like up to today, scoring only the new photos.

Saved audits never leave your iPhone and aren't included in backups. Tap Clear next to Recent Audits to remove them.

It's off unless you turn it on. The app asks once after the How It Works guide, and you can change your answer any time under About. When it's on, the app sends Google Analytics for Firebase which features you use and rounded audit results, like “about 20% Keepers” or “1,000–4,999 photos”, linked only to a random ID. This helps us see how well the ratings work across different libraries.

It never sends your photos, where they were taken, album names or anything that identifies you. See the Privacy Policy for the full list.