Photos App importing photos that have already been imported

Hi

What version of MacOS do you have?

This normally happens when your phone is taking HEIC format pictures, but converting them on download to your mac to JPG. Then when you connect your phone again, they are different filenames, so not recognised as already downloaded.

You can check by looking at the filenames - is it .jpg on your mac, and .heic on your phone?

To fix this, if you have a macOS version that can handle HEIC Format images, then change the iphone photos trasfer setting to "keep original" from "automatic"

If you do this, you might want to do a final download of everything from phone to mac so you have the HEIC images, then delete the jpg versions.

Hi

On the phone - settings>photos>transfer to PC (or similar)

There are no facilities in photos to automate finding and deleting duplicates, so either

* manually,

* or using an app designed to work with the photos library (Ie one that marks the photos or puts them in an album, and lets you review and then delete them, rather than doing the delete itself.

Do NOT use a general file duplicate finder not designed to work with the photos library. They will damage your photos library and likely cause loss of your photos.

I personally use PowerPhotos (I also use this for copying images and data between libraries)
https://www.fatcatsoftware.com/powerphotos/


Another suitable app recommended by experts here is PhotoSweeper (I have no personal experience of this one)

https://overmacs.com/

Both are paid apps. PhotoSweeper is the lowest cost and can recognise duplicates based on content, but PowerPhotos provides a lot of functionality in addition to the duplicate detection.