iOS 26 Clean Up Tool: Remove Objects From Photos

iOS 26 Clean Up tool in Photos removes unwanted objects, people, or distractions from photos using on-device AI. All processing happens locally on A17 Pro and later chips. No photo is sent to any server.

Accessing Clean Up

Photos > open a photo > tap Edit > tap the Clean Up tool (eraser icon in the toolbar, or under the wand icon). Draw over the object you want to remove. Photos uses AI to fill in the background naturally.

iOS 26 version adds improvements: better edge detection for people and objects, improved fill quality for complex backgrounds, and support for larger removal areas than iOS 18.

What Clean Up Is Good For

Removing tourists in landmark photos, eliminating distracting objects in backgrounds, cleaning up power lines or signs in scenic shots, removing unwanted items from product or home photos.

Clean Up works best on images with identifiable, distinct objects against a clear background. It struggles with complex textures (crowds, dense foliage) and areas where the fill region is ambiguous.

For Scanned Documents

Clean Up is useful for photos of physical documents: remove coffee stains, pen marks, or corner fold shadows before saving to Nemos or Files. Improving the photo quality improves OCR accuracy downstream.

Privacy

Apple’s Clean Up uses the same on-device Vision framework and Foundation Models as other Apple Intelligence features. Original photos are preserved in Photo Library; edited versions are created separately. Photos uploaded to shared albums or social media will use the edited version.

Comparison with Third-Party Apps

Adobe Lightroom ($9.99/month) has Content-Aware Fill (cloud processing). Snapseed (free, Google) has healing tool (on-device). For most users, Apple’s Clean Up is sufficient and free; Lightroom is the upgrade if you need professional photo editing beyond removal.