Duplicate photos, different file names - how?

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Duchy777 Author

Level 3

710 points

Duplicate photos, different file names - how?

Hi,

I've been consolidating years of photos into a "Master Library".

As part of that process I have used 3 duplicate finders.

As an example, I used folder 2012, all my pics from many sources taken in that year.

The first app didn't find any - great!

The other two did because they were set to compare images.

I found I have scores of identical pictures with the same exif data but weirdly, different filenames. An example IMG-0329 is an identical picture to IMG-0642.

How can that happen? They're identical in every way.

This is not a Photos issue as I don't use that app.

Any advice would be welcome - I'm very worried the duplicates may not be real duplicates and I'll be dumping photos that I can't get back!

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Sep 23, 2020 8:38 AM

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Answer 1

Duchy777 Author

Level 3

710 points

Sep 23, 2020 9:02 AM in response to Keith Barkley

I will try to post an example ---- tomorrow, it's well past my bedtime here but thanks for replying! Just quickly, a preliminary view of the exif data looked identical, but I'll check more thoroughly tomorrow.

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Answer 2

Sep 23, 2020 8:51 AM in response to Duchy777

They are clearly *not* identical, since the names are different. Does the Exif data indicate anything? i.e., where they the same time, the same camera....

And if you are not using Photos, how are these "libraries" created?

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Answer 3

Duchy777 Author

Level 3

710 points

Sep 24, 2020 5:33 AM in response to Keith Barkley

Hi, a couple of screenshots of 1 example. Er, don't laugh at the photos :-)

I'm creating the libraries manually. I drop folders into Graphic Converter and rename them by tagging exif time at the beginning (which should preserve original file name). Once they're all dated, I drop them into folders of years / months. They're family shots so it's a great way to refer to them. Works well but obviously a bit more time consuming than Aperture or Photos.

The examples below show very different IMG numbers so it's not a matter of using burst shots.

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Answer 4

VikingOSX

Level 10

123,398 points

Sep 24, 2020 7:19 AM in response to Duchy777

If you copy/paste the following AppleScript code into the Dock : Launchpad : Other : Script Editor application, and then click run, it will prompt you for each of two (image) files, run and compare 64-bit checksums on them, and pop a dialog telling you if the files are identical or not. Files with identical content but different names are identical.

-- img_compare.applescript

-- prompt user for two files, compare their 64 bit checksums, and display
-- a dialog indicating whether identical or not.

use scripting additions

set file1 to POSIX path of (choose file default location (path to desktop) without multiple selections allowed, invisibles and showing package contents)

set file2 to POSIX path of (choose file default location (path to desktop) without multiple selections allowed, invisibles and showing package contents)


set checksums to paragraphs of (do shell script "/usr/bin/shasum -a1 " & file1 & space & file2)

-- extract checksums
set ck1 to word 1 of (item 1 of checksums) as text
set ck2 to word 1 of (item 2 of checksums) as text

if ck1 = ck2 then
	set identical to "true"
else
	set identical to "false"
end if
display dialog "Files identical: " & identical with title "File checksum comparison"
return

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Answer 5

Duchy777 Author

Level 3

710 points

Sep 25, 2020 7:38 PM in response to Keith Barkley

Thanks again, yes I looked at that bit the thing is it's happening as far back as 2010 (maybe before, not checked yet!), well before HEIC, and when duplicates are imported (normally and when you don't get to "replace" or "Skip") it comes in with the same number and then version, e.g in the example above it would be IMG_0306(1) not a wildly different number like IMG_0619.

I've also started to find duplicates where the number is OK and given a rev number but the time is different between them, by a factor of many hours as if one was using UTC and the other local time!!

I am perplexed but will keep trying to solve. As long as I'm not losing any pictures, that's the main thing!

Cheers

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