French_Chris

Q: Sudden unwanted duplicates in photos

Hi,

I have just found that a whole lot of photos have been duplicated in one of my folders.

The weird thing is there are no duplicates in the "All Photos" folder. They only appear in a date range smart folder to cover a trip I was on and.

The duplicates are exactly the same as the originals but they are .JPG instead of .jpg and their size is reduced (9MB becomes 5MB).

 

Can anyone tell me how they appeared and, by consequence, how I can avoid this repeating?

What is the easiest way to get rid of the duplicates?

 

I imported these photos from my photos library on my laptop onto to my iMac. Could it be something in that process?

There are even some photos I deleted that have reappeared!

 

Confused!

Posted on May 11, 2016 8:05 AM

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Q: Sudden unwanted duplicates in photos

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  • by LarryHN,Helpful

    LarryHN LarryHN May 12, 2016 1:42 AM in response to French_Chris
    Level 10 (84,585 points)
    Photos for Mac
    May 12, 2016 1:42 AM in response to French_Chris

    your post is not clear

     

    In Photos folders do not hold photos - they are for albums or other folders - and All Photos is an album not a folder adn there are no smart folders, only smart albums - since we can not see you and only have words to communicate with using them correctly is important to eliminating mis-communications

     

    Assuming that you actually mean Albums in Photos we need some more information

     

    Are you sure that there are no duplicates in All Photos? The All PHotos albums is sorted by date added so if you imported these photos twice (the most likely guess as to what is going on) the first and second set would no necessarily be together or even near each other so looked back in All Photos an I expect you will find a second import of these photos - if this is correct then all you need to do is to select all of the photos in one import and delete them (hold the command key and press the delete key)

     

    Also look in Photo Moments and see - again I expect you will find two sets there too

     

    LN

  • by French_Chris,

    French_Chris French_Chris May 11, 2016 9:00 AM in response to LarryHN
    Level 1 (20 points)
    Desktops
    May 11, 2016 9:00 AM in response to LarryHN

    Thanks for answering so quickly. Yes, I did mean Albums. Sorry for my "between the keyboard and the chair-ness".

    And, no. They only appear once in All Photos and twice in the smart album (date range) with .JPG instead of .jpg (could that be a clue? I have no idea. Caps represented the duplicated ones) and in smaller size.

    I just looked in Moments and they are appear twice there too, but side by side with the date of the photo in both and not, apparently, with separate import dates.

     

    It is only certain series of photos that are duplicated and ones that I deleted are back, but only once (naturally).

    Odd. If I could work out why this has happened I may be able to prevent it in future.

     

    Could if be something to do with My Photo Stream?

  • by LarryHN,Apple recommended

    LarryHN LarryHN May 12, 2016 1:42 AM in response to French_Chris
    Level 10 (84,585 points)
    Photos for Mac
    May 12, 2016 1:42 AM in response to French_Chris

    Again read carefully because I believe you will find that there are two copies from different imports in All Photos which is sorted by import date - Photos is sorted by Photos date and what you describe still exactly matches what I expected

     

    Are you sure that there are no duplicates in All Photos? The All PHotos albums is sorted by date added so if you imported these photos twice (the most likely guess as to what is going on) the first and second set would not necessarily be together or even near each other so looked back in All Photos and I expect you will find a second import of these photos - if this is correct then all you need to do is to select all of the photos in one import and delete them (hold the command key and press the delete key)


    Also look in Photo Moments and see - again I expect you will find two sets there too [you did as I predicted]

    Since Moments is sorted by Photo date I expected the duplicates to be together just like they are in the album - it is in All Photos where they are not together adnyou are very likely to find the second set if you look as I suggested

     

    LN

  • by French_Chris,

    French_Chris French_Chris May 12, 2016 1:41 AM in response to LarryHN
    Level 1 (20 points)
    Desktops
    May 12, 2016 1:41 AM in response to LarryHN

    Thank you Larry. You are correct, they are in All Photos. I missed them because they have come in in strange order so there is no "logic" to their presentation (I mean they are not grouped as I expected them to be so instead of looking for a series of pictures, I had to go and find them individually.

     

    Now the question remains: how did that happen? If I can sort that I can maybe stop it happening again.
    Could it be My Photo Stream? I switched this on on my iMac after them importing them all and they are now appearing gradually on my iPad and perhaps from there, they are finding their way back onto the iMac? Is this possible? It seems a bit strange but I guess if I turned My Photo Stream on after import, there may be a cause.

     

    In any case, you have gone a long way towards helping me understanding and I thank you for your patience and your time.

  • by léonie,Solvedanswer

    léonie léonie May 12, 2016 1:56 AM in response to French_Chris
    Level 10 (106,848 points)
    iLife
    May 12, 2016 1:56 AM in response to French_Chris

    Are you using "Shared Albums" as well?  If you share a photo to a shared album, it may be reduced in size. And reimporting from a Shared album will give you a smaller photo. The max dimension of photos in Shared Albums is 2048 pixels.

     

    Your iPad will download from My Photo Stream in an optimized size.  If you them import from your iPad using a USB connection, you will import smaller versions as well.

  • by LarryHN,Apple recommended

    LarryHN LarryHN May 12, 2016 7:02 AM in response to French_Chris
    Level 10 (84,585 points)
    Photos for Mac
    May 12, 2016 7:02 AM in response to French_Chris

    You are wecome

     

    and

     

    All Photos which is sorted by import date

    The initial migration has no real order because it all happened at once - but after that each time a photo is added to Photos is is at the bottom of the All Photos album making All Photos much like events in iPhoto where you got an event per import

     

    LN

  • by French_Chris,

    French_Chris French_Chris May 14, 2016 3:40 AM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (20 points)
    Desktops
    May 14, 2016 3:40 AM in response to léonie

    Yes, indeed. I'd forgotten about that. I created a shared album on the MBA as a possible way to get the photos to iMac (which you kindly helped me with). I now have the explanation of how they got there.

    Is it too much to hope, do you think, that by deleting the Shared Album from the MBA they will automatically delete from the iMac? Yes? Well, I'll give it a bit of time and then delete them by hand.

    Thanks again Léonie.

  • by French_Chris,

    French_Chris French_Chris May 14, 2016 3:42 AM in response to LarryHN
    Level 1 (20 points)
    Desktops
    May 14, 2016 3:42 AM in response to LarryHN

    Thanks again. I understand that logic but I couldn't work out where they were coming from.

    BTW, while I have you around, now that I have all my iPhoto events in Photos and I have resorted the photos into smart albums by date, can I delete the iphoto events albums without fear? And also the the iPhoto library, which is taking up space on my computer?

    Thanks

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie May 14, 2016 7:05 AM in response to French_Chris
    Level 10 (106,848 points)
    iLife
    May 14, 2016 7:05 AM in response to French_Chris
    Is it too much to hope, do you think, that by deleting the Shared Album from the MBA they will automatically delete from the iMac? Yes? Well, I'll give it a bit of time and then delete them by hand.

    If you imported the photos from the Shared album to your Photos Library or imported via a USB connection, then deleting the Shared album will not help.

     

    now that I have all my iPhoto events in Photos and I have resorted the photos into smart albums by date, can I delete the iphoto events albums without fear?

    Delete the albums by selecting the album in the sidebar and ctrl-clicking it or right-clicking it. Then use "Delete Album" from the pop-up menu.  This will delete the album, but not the photos from your library.

    And also the the iPhoto library, which is taking up space on my computer?

    if you are sure, that at the iPhoto Library has been migrated successfully after testing it for some time you can delete it. Keep a backup of the library on an external drive, just in case.

    Deleting the iPhoto Library will probably not free much storage, because a migrated Photo Library is using the same photos as the original iPhoto Library. So you will not gain much by deleting it.   (Photos saves disk space by sharing images with your iPhoto or Aperture libraries - Apple Support)