How to remove a person from a photo on iPhone (iOS 26)
iOS 26 has Apple's Clean Up tool built in — but whether you can use it comes down to your iPhone, not the iOS version. Here's the full picture.
iOS 26 doesn't decide — your iPhone does
This trips a lot of people up: installing iOS 26 does not add Clean Up to an older iPhone. Clean Up is part of Apple Intelligence, which needs an A17 Pro chip or newer. iOS 26 runs on iPhones as old as the iPhone 11, but those phones still can't use Clean Up.
On iOS 26, Clean Up works only on:
- iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max
- All iPhone 16 models (including the 16e)
- iPhone Air
- All iPhone 17 models
If you have an iPhone 15 / 15 Plus, an iPhone 14 or older, or any iPhone SE — Clean Up won't appear on iOS 26. Check your exact model here.
If you do have Clean Up on iOS 26
Open the photo in Photos, tap Edit › Clean Up, and brush over the person. It's good for small objects — but it still smears large foreground subjects, where a dedicated tool does better.
The option that works on every iOS 26 iPhone: Removex
Removex removes people in one tap on any iPhone running iOS 17.6 or later — so it works whether or not your iPhone has Clean Up on iOS 26. It detects the whole subject, handles large close-up people, and rebuilds the background at full resolution.
Remove people on iOS 26 — on any iPhone
Free to download. iPhone, iOS 17.6 or later.
Download RemovexRelated: Compatibility checker · Clean Up not showing up? · Clean Up vs Removex