Best Selfie Camera App for iPhone: The One It Came With

For most selfies, stay in the Camera app. The front camera takes Portrait mode shots on an iPhone X or later, one setting stops your selfies coming out flipped, and Photos handles the editing afterwards. A separate app earns its place for two things Apple leaves out: live beauty filters and retro looks while you shoot, and face retouching after.

We read Apple’s support pages for what the iPhone does on its own, then went through the App Store listing of each app. Nine of the ten apps this article named in 2019 are still on the store in some form. Most of them now sell a subscription.

iPhone selfie camera settings

Menu names move a little between iOS versions. These follow Apple’s current iPhone User Guide, whose Take a selfie page is the place to start.

Why iPhone selfies come out flipped

By default the iPhone saves a selfie reversed from the preview on screen, so the photo does not match what you saw when you took it. To keep the shot as you saw it, open Settings, tap Camera and turn on Mirror Front Camera.

Portrait mode on the front camera

Apple says you need an iPhone X or later to take a selfie in Portrait mode. Open Camera, swipe to Portrait and switch to the front camera. The background blurs and you stay sharp.

There are six lighting effects to choose from. Natural Light is the plain one. Studio Light brightens the face, Contour Light adds shadow, the two Stage Light effects put you against black, and High-Key Light Mono puts you in greyscale against white. Apple’s guide says that raising the intensity of an effect can sharpen eyes or brighten and smooth facial features.

Nothing is fixed when you press the shutter. In Photos, open the portrait for editing and you can swap the lighting effect, drag the Depth Control slider to add or remove blur, or turn the portrait effect off. Apple’s Portrait mode page has the steps. On supported models, an ordinary photo of a person can be turned into a portrait afterwards as well.

Styles, skin texture and the timer

A Photographic Style changes the tone and colour of every photo until you pick another. In Camera, swipe up from the mode names, tap Styles and swipe through them. To keep your choice the next time you open Camera, go to Settings, Camera, Preserve Settings and turn on Photographic Style.

The iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max add a Texture control to Styles, and one of its options is called Soft Skin. Between that and Portrait Lighting, this is as close as Apple comes to a beauty filter.

The timer is in the same menu: tap Timer, then 3, 5 or 10 seconds. You can also take the shot with either volume button or, on models that have one, the Camera Control. Apple’s guide lists two remote options as well: pressing the stem on supported AirPods, and Camera Remote on an Apple Watch.

Editing a selfie in Photos

Photos covers the basics without another app. Adjust has sliders for exposure, brilliance, highlights and more, with a button that enhances the photo automatically. There are filters such as Vivid and Dramatic. On an iPhone 15 Pro, or an iPhone 16 or later, Apple Intelligence adds Clean Up, which removes distracting objects. Apple notes it is not available in every language or region. Any edit can be undone with Revert to Original.

Apple’s Camera and Photos pages describe no tool for reshaping a face, whitening teeth or adding make-up. That is the gap the apps below fill.

Selfie apps compared

Prices are the in-app purchases shown on each app’s US App Store page. Other countries pay in local currency. Several apps list the same plan at more than one price, so the offer you see inside the app may differ.

Every app in the table is on the US, UK and Nigerian App Stores. In India, AirBrush is not listed.

What the subscriptions cost

Ten of the eleven are free to download. The costs come later, as in-app purchases, and the smallest price on the list is usually the dearest way to pay.

Take the weekly plans. AirBrush lists one week at $7.99. Left running for a year, that is 52 payments and $415.48, against $54.99 at most for its yearly plan. Retrica’s weekly plan at $5.99 comes to $311.48 over a year, and its yearly plans are $29.99 and $59.99. Lens Buddy at $2.99 a week is $155.48 a year, against $29.99 to $39.99 for a year bought in one go.

So if an app is worth paying for, take the yearly plan. To see or cancel what you are paying for, open Settings, tap your name, then Subscriptions. Apple’s cancellation page walks through it.

Few listings say what stays free. Retrica is the clearest: more than 260 of its 388 presets are free, and photos save without a watermark. B612 says the app can be used without buying VIP, and Perfect365 says its subscription is what removes the ads. B612’s description also quotes VIP at $6.99 a month while the purchase list on the same page says $9.99. Go by the price on the payment sheet.

Before you install, read the App Privacy section of the listing too, because a selfie app works on photos of your face. Ten of the eleven apps in the table declare data used to track you. Lens Buddy is the one that does not.

Cameras with live filters

Retrica applies its look before you press the shutter. Its listing describes presets modelled on early-2000s digital cameras and disposable film, with grain and light leaks, plus a timer and front camera support.

B612 and SODA come from the same company. SODA is the simpler of the two: a selfie camera that applies skin touch-ups and filters in real time. B612 does that and adds AR make-up, a photo and video editor and a tool for building your own filters.

Cymera is the old-fashioned all-rounder. Its listing covers beauty tools, 130 filters, seven lens modes including fisheye, a timer, a silent mode, collage layouts and support for Bluetooth selfie sticks. The purchases shown on its App Store page are all decoration packs, with no subscription among them.

Retouching apps

Facetune and AirBrush do much the same job. Both listings offer skin smoothing, blemish removal, teeth whitening, reshaping and make-up, for video as well as photos, and both now add AI extras such as generated headshots. Our 2019 list had Facetune 2. Lightricks now lists a single app, called Facetune.

YouCam Perfect and Camera360 mix a beauty camera with an editor. YouCam Perfect’s listing is now mostly about AI: object removal, background swaps, outfit changes and body reshaping. Camera360 lists over 300 filters, make-up styles and face-tracking stickers.

Perfect365 is about make-up: lipstick, eyeliner, contour and full preset looks applied to a photo of your face.

Visage Lab PRO HD is the only one here you pay for once. For $4.99 it retouches a portrait automatically, covering skin, eyes, teeth and red-eye, and its listing promises no ads or watermarks. It does far less than the others, which is the point.

Hands-free shots

The Camera timer gives you up to ten seconds to get into the frame. Lens Buddy is for when that is not enough. You set an interval, put the phone down, and it takes one photo after another. Its listing says saving straight to the camera roll needs the paid subscription. Without it, photos are kept in the app’s own gallery.

Which one to pick

• A good, plain selfie: the Camera app in Portrait mode. Turn on Mirror Front Camera if the flipped result bothers you.
• A look, without paying: Retrica. It is the one listing that puts a number on what is free.
• A beauty filter while you shoot: SODA if that is all you want, B612 if you also want an editor.
• Retouching afterwards: Facetune or AirBrush. The tools are much the same, so let the price decide. AirBrush is the one whose App Store page says what each period costs.
• No subscription at all: Visage Lab PRO HD at $4.99, or Cymera with its $0.99 packs.
• Photos of yourself with nobody to hold the phone: the Camera timer first, Lens Buddy if you need a run of shots.

What happened to the old list

We could not match PIP Camera to a current listing. A few small apps use the name and none is clearly the one we listed, so we have left it out. Only the paid PRO HD version of Visage Lab turns up in a search now.

SelfieCity is still on the US store and sells VIP subscriptions, but it is missing from the UK and Indian stores, so we dropped it.

On Android the choice is different. Our guide to camera apps for Android covers it.

Quick answers

What is the best free selfie app for iPhone?

The Camera app. Of the downloads, Retrica’s listing says more than 260 of its presets are free and that photos save without a watermark.

Why are iPhone selfies flipped?

By default the iPhone saves a selfie reversed from the preview. Turn on Mirror Front Camera under Settings, Camera to save it the way you saw it.

How do I take a selfie on iPhone without pressing the button?

Use the timer: swipe up from the mode names in Camera, tap Timer and choose 3, 5 or 10 seconds. Apple also lists the stem of supported AirPods and Camera Remote on an Apple Watch as ways to take the photo.

Does the iPhone camera have a beauty filter?

Not by that name. Portrait Lighting can brighten and smooth facial features, and the iPhone 18 Pro models have a Soft Skin texture in Photographic Styles. Reshaping and make-up need a third-party app.

Which iPhones take Portrait mode selfies?

Apple says an iPhone X or later.