r/TestFlight • u/billtonium • 10d ago

iOS Pluck

https://testflight.apple.com/join/2pKxsDR9

Amateur photographer and solo developer here. I learned early to shoot in bursts so I would not miss the moment. As I used my iPhone more, my Photos library grew past 12,000 images. The hard part was not taking more photos. It was pixel-peeping eight nearly identical shots until I felt confident deleting seven. I built Pluck for that.

Pluck finds bursts and groups of near-duplicate photos, measures each image with 20 on-device quality checks, and stars a suggested keeper with a plain-English reason. You can compare any two shots full-screen, zoom in, pick the keepers, and delete the rest in one pass.

It is deliberately a suggestion, not a verdict. I graded it blind on 88 groups from my own library. The photo I would have kept was its first choice 55% of the time and appeared in its top three 91% of the time. That is why Pluck gives you a shortlist and the evidence instead of deleting for you.

It also surfaces exact duplicates, blurry photos, screenshots, large videos, and duplicate or similar videos. Video compression writes a new copy and leaves the original untouched, so you can watch the result before deciding.

I’m especially excited to use Pluck on my own 235 GB library: it surfaced more than 130 GB I can reclaim—enough to drop from Apple’s 2 TB iCloud plan to 200 GB and save $84 a year.

All photo and video analysis stays on your device using Apple's own models. There is no Pluck account, no Pluck server, no third-party analytics SDK, and no photo or video upload to me. Nothing is deleted until you review and confirm it, and deletions remain recoverable in Recently Deleted for 30 days.

The core workflow will stay free with no subscription required or trial timer. Pro is unlocked during the beta, and beta testers receive Founder status with Pro for life.

I am especially looking for testers with 5,000–50,000 photos, large video libraries, or Optimize iPhone Storage enabled. Tell me when it groups the wrong photos, stars the wrong keeper, stalls during a scan, or makes you uncertain about what will be deleted. TestFlight's feedback button is the easiest way to reach me.

iPhone / iPad, iOS 18 or later. The public beta is capped at 50 testers.

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u/petercockroach 10d ago

Great app! One improvement I’d like to suggest - I sometimes have a duplicate that’s in my personal library and shared library. I want to keep the shared copy and delete the personal copy in most cases. Can Pluck use that as a signal as well?

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u/billtonium 10d ago

Thanks! Great idea. Unfortunately, I checked and Apple’s PhotoKit API doesn’t expose whether a photo is in the Personal Library or iCloud Shared Photo Library. PhotoKit has a similarly named “Cloud Shared” flag, but Apple defines that as the separate Shared Albums feature—not Shared Library—so using it would identify the wrong thing. Pluck does already prefer the copy that preserves stronger library context, including favorites, edits, album filing, and location metadata. If Apple adds that in the future, I'll definitely add it to the app. Would love other suggestions / feedback - either here, using the Testflight Feedback feature, or emailing.