How to remove a person from a photo on iPhone 17
The iPhone 17 has Apple's built-in Clean Up tool — great for small fixes, less reliable on large subjects. Here's how to use it, and what to do when it falls short.
Your iPhone 17 can use Apple's Clean Up tool.
With its A19 chip, the iPhone 17 supports Apple Intelligence. On iOS 18.1 or later, open a photo in Photos, tap Edit › Clean Up, and brush over the person.
The catch: large subjects
Clean Up is excellent for small, distant objects. But when you try to remove a large person close to the camera, it often leaves visible smearing where the background should be. That's a limitation of how the tool is tuned, not something a setting fixes.
The reliable option for tough photos: Removex
Removex is built specifically for removing people. You tap once, it detects the whole subject, and it rebuilds the background at full resolution — including the large, close-up subjects Clean Up struggles with. In group photos, you can select everyone and exclude the people you want to keep.
Related: Compatibility checker · Clean Up vs Removex · iPhone 16