Avoids duplicates on photo imports

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Level 1

8 points

Avoids duplicates on photo imports

I am moving about 90,000 photos from Lightroom to Apple Photos. Many of my photos are in multiple Lightroom Collections and similar to Apple Photos, there is just one original and links to it from each collection. I have exported all of my collections to separate folders and all photos not on any collection to separate folder. But this means I have duplicates now of photos that are in multiple albums. When I bring the first set into their new album all is good, but as I bring in more and more albums I start getting the duplicate message. How do I answer this? Of course I want the same picture in multiple albums. If I say "Yes" I assume I'll have duplicates, but if I say "No" I assume it won't bring the photo into the successive albums. I am missing something here? Please advise....

MacBook Pro (2020 and later)

Posted on May 20, 2021 10:14 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

TonyCollinet

Level 7

23,867 points

May 20, 2021 10:41 PM in response to MarcsPhotos

You are not missing anything. Apple Photos can only recognise duplicates as duplicates if the file is 100% identical. Since you have created the files from different exports out of lightroom, they are not identical, so will not be recognised, and will be re-imported. Further, you should really only import from the original files out of the storage location where you keep your originals for lighroom - or those originals will be lost.

Having gone through this exact process myself a year ago, there is no easy way that I am aware of to replicate a set of collections from light room in Apple Photos except manually.

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Answer 2

MarcsPhotos Author

Level 1

8 points

May 21, 2021 5:33 AM in response to TonyCollinet

Thanks for the reply Tony, I really appreciate it. I think coming to Photos is a waste of time in that case. With nearly 90,000 photos, I'm unwilling to re-organize all of them into Albums all over again. One idea though??? If I keyword my photos in Collections with the Collection name, could I then in Photos, search for the photos that belong in an Album by keyword and then copy those into an Album???? What do you think?

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Answer 3

May 21, 2021 5:40 AM in response to MarcsPhotos

I can't believe I didn't think of that.

you will need to find a way of bringing the keywords from Lightroom to Photos (I don't know if lightroom will write the keywords into your original files, or if it will keep them in the database, but allow you to write them as XMP sidecar files.

If it does the sidecar route you will need to put the xmp file in the same folder as your original files before import to photos. I suggest you test with just a few images first.

If you can get the images into Photos complete with the keyword, then you can use smart albums to select all those with a particular keyword:

EG with the condition

keyword - is - holiday

etc.

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Answer 4

MarcsPhotos Author

Level 1

8 points

May 21, 2021 8:34 AM in response to TonyCollinet

Unfortunately, no luck. I have a Collection of 41 photos and videos all with the keyword Mask, and only Mask. I exported then to a folder. The folder included 15 XMP files as well. I pulled all the files into Photos. 41 ended up in my Library, as expected. Then, I created the Smart Album with Keyword IS Mask, and only 12 showed up. The others, indeed, do not include the keyword. I tried this with both "Write Keywords as Lightroom Hierarchy" on and off. No difference. :-)

Bummer, guess I'm stuck with Adobe and their Annual fee. May try ON1, It's a little cheaper.

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Avoids duplicates on photo imports

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