How to combine photos on iPhone

Do you often wish you could combine or merge two or more photos before sending them to your bestie or sharing them on social media? Fortunately, this is an easy task for your iPhone, whether you do it with Shortcuts, Layout, or another app. In this article, we’ll show you how to combine pictures on iPhone step by step. So, let’s go!

Using your iPhone to combine photos

Let’s take a look at some of the different ways you can combine photos on your iPhone, so you can choose the method that works best for your needs. 

If you often combine several photos in the same way, you can create a Shortcut. Layout offers you more creative license, and there are several photo editing apps that give you endless creative control.

How to combine photos on iPhone with Shortcuts

As in real life, a Shortcut on iPhone provides a way to quickly complete a task on your iPhone by tapping on the Shortcut or simply by asking Siri to complete the task. 

Shortcuts can be created to automate all kinds of things on iPhone, including combining and merging photos. While the Shortcut for merging photos on iPhone takes a few minutes to set up, once it’s up and running, you can use it over and over again to combine your photos.

Here’s how to create a Shortcut so you can combine photos on your iPhone:

1. Open Shortcuts on your iPhone. You can use the search feature to find it if you’ve never created a Shortcut before.
2. Tap the ‘+’ in the upper right corner of the screen.
3. Tap ‘New Shortcut’ at the very top of the screen.
4. Tap ‘Rename’ and add a descriptive name for this new Shortcut, like ‘merge photos’ or ‘combine photos,’ and tap ‘Done.’
5. Now tap ‘Add Action’ and search to add ‘Select photos.’
6. Tap the small arrow next to ‘Select photos’ to open the drop-down menu, and toggle on ‘Select Multiple.’
7. Use the search bar to find and tap on ‘Combine Images.’
8. Choose whether you want to combine the images horizontally, vertically, or in a grid.
9. Tap on the arrow next to your choice to add a space between photos. The default spacing is 0 pixels between photos.
10. Use the search bar to find and choose your third action — ‘Save to Photo Album.’
11. The default settings will save your new photo combination to your Recents album, but you can tap on it to change the album.
12. Tap ‘Done’ to save your new Shortcut.

Now when you want to quickly combine photos, you can tap on the new Shortcut or ask Siri to do it, select photos, and they will automatically merge together. 

Too many unwanted photos? Use CleanMy®Phone to clean up your Library

Who has time to go through thousands of photos, choose the ones you don’t want, and delete them? If you’re overwhelmed by your Photo Library, CleanMy®Phone can help. Within a few moments, it scans your photos and categorizes them for you so you can quickly and easily choose the best of several similar images using its Organize module and delete screenshots, duplicates, screen recordings, and other clutter eating up space on your phone with its Declutter module.

How to merge photos on iPhone using Layout

Layout is a free app from the developers of Instagram that can be used to easily create combinations of photos and beautiful collages.

If combining photos is not something you do enough to warrant a dedicated Shortcut, then you may want to use Layout, which will also give you more control over the results. 

Here’s how to easily merge photos on iPhone using Layout by Instagram:

1. Install and open Layout on your iPhone.
2. Tap ‘Get Started’ and give the app permission to access your photos.
3. Your Photo Library will open inside the app, and you can select the photos that you want to use by tapping on them.
4. As you choose each photo, they will automatically be added to different layouts at the top of the screen.
5. Select the layout you want to use, and it will open in a new window.
6. You can tap on each individual photo to reposition it within its border.
7. Tap ‘Replace’ to add different photos to your collage.
8. Press ‘Borders’ to add or take away borders.
9. When you’re happy with the results, tap ‘Save’ and ‘Done.’

How to do side by side photo on iPhone

You can create iPhone side by side photo using the same method mentioned above involving the Layout app. 

Select the two photos you want to merge, and then choose the side-by-side layout from the options at the top of the screen. Save your new photo before printing, sending, or sharing on social media. 

Now that you know how to merge two photos on iPhone using Layout, let’s learn about the third option — apps designed for the purpose.

How to combine pictures using apps

Want to try something new? While I love using both Shortcuts and Layout to combine photos on iPhone, they are certainly not the only two options. Here are a couple more apps that I recommend if you need more advanced methods for combining apps on iPhone:

Canva: Canva is all about combining photos, adding graphics, and sharing designs on social media. Not only can you create fantastic collages, but you can also add text overlays, animations, and more to create a personalized design.

Fotor: This app is a robust photo editor with lots of different collage layouts for you to choose from. The app is free to download and use, but in order to save the photo, you have to either buy Fotor Pro or complete tasks designated by the app.

Now that you know how to combine two photos on iPhone — or more than two images, for that matter — you can make creative photo collages to send to your friends or share on social media using a few simple steps. Once you get the hang of it, combining photos on your iPhone is easy to do.