I’m trying to combine two pictures into one image on my iPhone, but I can’t figure out the fastest way to place them side by side. I need this for a quick post and don’t want to download the wrong app or lose photo quality. What’s the easiest built-in method or best app to use?
Looking at two photos side by side on an iPhone still feels weirdly clumsy. I kept expecting Apple to hide a compare tool somewhere obvious, but no. If you want a clean way to check two shots against each other, you end up piecing together your own method.
Where the Photos app trips up
I tried doing this in the stock Photos app for a while. You open one image, swipe to the next, then back again, and try to remember small details from the first shot while staring at the second. For stuff like focus, motion blur, or tiny changes in expression, it falls apart fast. I usually kept both photos because I did not trust my memory. After a few months, storage got chewed up by duplicates and near-duplicates.
If you want one combined side by side image
The built-in Shortcuts app does work for this. No extra app needed. I used it for before-and-after pics and quick visual comparisons.
- Open Shortcuts and hit the plus button
- Add the action called Select Photos, then turn on Select Multiple
- Add Combine Images, then set it to horizontal
- Add Save to Photo Album
- Give the shortcut a name, then place it on your Home Screen if you want faster access
- Run it, pick two images, and it saves a new merged file into your library
That part works fine. You get a single image with both photos placed next to each other. Good for sharing. Good for progress shots. Not so good if your goal is sorting through 14 versions of the same dog photo and keeping one.
For picking the best shot from similar photos, this is easier
I ran into the bigger problem when I was cleaning my camera roll. Bursts, repeat shots, tiny angle changes, screenshots of the same thing. The shortcut trick did not help there, and making extra merged files made the mess worse.
Clever Cleaner handles this in a more direct way. What stood out to me was the Similars section. It scans the library and groups photos which are close enough to be the same moment, like five shots of one face, two sunset pics with different exposure, or a burst where one frame is sharp and the others are soft.
From what I saw, it marks a Best Shot inside each group. The pick is based on things like blur and closed eyes. I still checked the groups myself, because I do not trust auto-selection blindly, but most of the time the suggestion was decent. Not perfect, still decent enough to save time.
Here is the flow I used:
- Open Clever Cleaner and go to the Similars tab
- Let it scan your photo library and build groups automatically
- Open each group and check the photo marked in green as the Best Shot
- Switch the pick if you like another image more
- Confirm deletion for the rest
- Check the app trash, then clear it when you feel sure
I liked one small thing here. Deleted files are not gone on the spot. They sit in the app’s trash first, so if you tap too fast, you still get a second shot at fixing it. I did that once. Fat-finger moment.
Other parts worth opening
The Heavies tab is blunt in a good way. It sorts files from biggest to smallest and shows the exact size. If your phone is full because of giant videos, they float straight to the top instead of being scattered through years of stuff.
The Screenshots tab is simpler than digging around in Apple’s own Photos categories. You see the file sizes right there before deleting anything. I found old boarding passes, receipts, login screens, random memes, all the usual junk.
Swipe mode felt less annoying than I expected. Photos are grouped by month, then you swipe left to delete or right to keep. If your library is a disaster, doing it month by month feels less punishing than staring at everything at once.
One more part I cared about, the processing stays on the device. Nothing gets sent off somewhere else.
What ended up working best for me
I landed on a split setup.
For true side by side images, I used Shortcuts.
For choosing one winner from a pile of near-identical photos, I used Clever Cleaner.
That covered both problems without paying for anything. The first scan took a few minutes on my phone. After cleaning an old library, I got back around 12GB. I was expecting less, tbh.
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Fastest built-in way on iPhone, use a collage app from the App Store, not Photos. I know @mikeappsreviewer mentioned Shortcuts, but for a quick post I think Shortcuts feels slower the first time you set it up.
Use Layout from Instagram or Canva.
- Open the app.
- Pick 2 photos.
- Choose the 2-panel side by side layout.
- Save/export.
- Post it.
Why this is faster:
- Takes about 20 to 40 seconds once installed.
- Keeps decent quality if you export at full size.
- Lets you drag the crop so faces do not get cut off.
If you do this often, collage apps beat the manual route. If you also want to clean up duplicate pics after, Clever Cleaner is worth a look. It’s a simple photo cleanup app for iPhone, and this better photo cleanup for similar shots on iPhone write-up covers how it handles lookalike images.
Small tip, save the final image before posting. Some apps compress on share, which is annoyng.
Fastest no-app way I’ve found is actually Pages, not Shortcuts. I kinda disagree with @mikeappsreviewer on “fastest” if you only need this once. Shortcuts is nice after setup, but for a one-off post it’s a few too many taps.
Do this:
- Open Pages
- New blank doc
- Tap + and insert your first photo
- Insert the second photo
- Drag them side by side
- Resize with two fingers
- Take a screenshot, or export the page as an image/PDF and save it
Why I like it:
- no extra download
- you control spacing better
- easy to line up uneven pics
- quality is usually fine for social posting
I also slightly disagree with @kakeru about collage apps always being the best. They’re fast, sure, but some of them compress stuff or slap weird borders on everything unless you tweak settings.
If your main worry is photo quality, CapCut is another decent option because you can set a canvas and place both images manually. More control, less “template app” nonsense.
And if part of this is because you’re sorting through 8 nearly identical shots before posting, Clever Cleaner is actually useful for cleaning similar photos on iPhone before you make the final side-by-side. Separate issue, but still helps.
Also, if you want another reference, this Apple Support thread about putting two photos side by side on iPhone has a few user ideas too.
Tbh for pure speed:
- Pages for no download
- CapCut for best control
- Layout/Canva if you do this all the time
The screenshot trick feels a little janky, but it works suprisingly well.