Apple Photos Clean Up Tool Is Significantly Better in iOS 27

Along with the brand new Siri AI, Apple is introducing a number of new Apple Intelligence features — including a trio of new AI tools in the Photos app. We’ve been here before: Apple previously released AI-powered image editing features like Clean Up, which didn’t necessarily hit the mark compared to similar tools from competitors like Google or Samsung. But this year appears to be a bit different: Apple’s newest models, including those that work off-device, are improving existing features and powering new tools. For the most part, it seems to be a step in the right direction.

Apple’s Clean Up Tool Is Much Better

The new Clean Up tool is perhaps the most important update here. In iOS 26, Clean Up used Apple’s on-device AI models to remove objects, but it was hit-or-miss. Clean Up was okay at basic tasks, but it couldn’t remove surrounding shadows, nor could it replace an object with something that looked like it was originally part of the image.

Clean Up now uses a hybrid approach. For simple tweaks, like removing a small object, it uses an on-device model, just like in iOS 26. But for bigger, more complex tasks — like removing an obstruction around your face — it hands off the task to Apple’s powerful Foundation models hosted on Apple’s own Private Cloud Compute servers. These servers, according to Apple, are completely private and encrypted. Apple says it doesn’t have access to your photos and doesn’t use your data for training.

To find these new tools, tap Edit on a photo, then choose Tools at the end of the toolbar. Here, tap Clean Up. By default, the feature is in Auto mode, which is the hybrid approach described above. You can also switch to High Quality to force Apple to use the cloud models.

Middle: Cleaning up using only the on-device Fast model (same as iOS 26). Right: Using Apple’s new Cloud models in iOS 27. Credit: Khamosh Pathak

From there, use your fingers to highlight the object or part of the image you want to remove. If you’re using Fast — the on-device option — the cleanup process will begin instantly. If you’re using High Quality, you’ll need to tap Clean Up and wait for Apple’s models to process the request. In practice, the wait time can stretch to several minutes when removing large, clearly defined objects.

After testing this feature across multiple images, the best advice is to always use High Quality. Fast is essentially the same as last year’s feature: it removes the object, but the replacement is noticeably lacking — as visible in the mismatched tabletop in the image above. Even when removing a distinct object from a table, High Quality does a significantly better job of replicating the surface texture and accurately rendering shadows cast by surrounding objects.