Duplicate Photos

Are you using iCloud Photos on your Mac and your iPhone?

Only then the deletion of photos from your Mac will sync to your iPhone.

Otherwise you will have to delete them from the iPhone as well.

• If you are using iCloud Photos and iPhone and Mac are synced by iCloud, there would be no need to download photos manually from the iPhone. This will create duplicates, as the photos will automatically be transferred by iCloud Photos. You will continually be seeing apparently new photos, when you connect the iPhone, but that will probably only the local downloads from iCloud on the iPhone as new files. You have to check carefully, if there are really new photos. The duplicate detection will not be able to tell, which photos have already been transferred by iCloud and which are really new. DO not import manually from the iPhone, if you are using iCloud Photos.
• If you are not using iCloud Photos the duplicate detection on import should work and the Mac should not be showing already imported photos for importing. But it could be disabled by two things:
  • If your iPhone camera is set to use the High Efficiency format when taking photos, but you are importing the photos converted to JPEGs, you will be seeing the same photos over and over again as new photos, as you are importing converted versions and not the originals on the iPhone. Avoid the conversion to JPEG and import the HEIC files, or set the camera to take the photos as JPEGs, if you prefer to have JPEGs on your Mac.
  • Another source of duplicates could be My Photo Stream or shared albums. whenever you save phots on your iPhone from shared albums or My Photo Stream, or save sync photos to the iPhone, they will be saved on the iPhone in a smaller resolution. These saved photos are smaller than the originals on your Mac and cannot be recognised as duplicates by the Mac.

To avoid duplicates avoid any format conversion when downloading from the iPhone, and avoid to mix the syncing with iCloud with other methods or import.

jtonn wrote:

I've double-checked and all 5 of my devices are set to sync photos via iCloud. One thing that I've noticed is that Photos on my iMac used to have an option to "Delete photos after import". That option seems no longer to be available.

The "Delete after Import" is not available, if you are importing from a device syncing with iCloud. This would delete the photos you just imported everywhere.

I plug my phone into my iMac to charge it on occasion. What puzzles me is that the "deleted" photos are still showing up as "new" photos that should be imported when I do so. Why? Are they taking up storage in iCloud? Presumably so. I simply want them gone.

Eject the iPhone immediately, when the import dialog appears and do not import. If all your devices are syncing with iCloud Photos all photos you are seeing in the import panel have already been imported and you would just create duplicates. iCloud is storing your photos only once, and all your devices are storing local copies of the same photos. If you delete them from your iPhone, they will be deleted from your Mac and iCloud as well. The purpose of iCloud Photos is to have the same photos on all your devices, and to sync your all your changes you are doing to your photos to all your devices and to keep them identical - the same photos in the same state of edits, the same titles and captions, the same albums and folders, etc.

Hi

In your phone photos settings, what does it say under "transfer to PC or MAC"? Automatic, or keep originals.

If automatic, when you transfer via USB it is converting the images from HEIC to JPG - so they are not being recognised as duplicates when you connect the phone.

You simply must not even try to import the photos that are shown as new, if you are using iCloud Photos on the device you are importing from. The primary storage of the photos is in iCloud, and and you cannot import from iCloud over a USB connection. All photos on the iPhone will sooner or later been uploaded to iCloud and from there to the Mac. There is no need to import via USB. Any photo you are seeing as "New" in the Import window will be temporary working copies on the iPhone, that have been downloaded from iCloud. When you import them, they will be imported as a new photo in addition to the version that is already there. When you delete this new version from your Mac, it will delete this duplicate and the duplicate version in iCloud, plus the duplicate that will have been synced back with iCloud to the iPhone, but the shadow copy on the iPhone, that has been shown on import as a new image will remain on the iPhone.

Any photo that you are using on your iPhone will download local shadow copies to the iPhone, so you can use the iCloud Photos. These shadow copies may always appear as new photos, and be different from the version you imported last. We are simply not supposed to try to import manually from the iPhone, if the photos are kept automatically identical on all devices by iCloud. There should not be any photos that are not in iCloud.

The only reason for importing manually from the iPhone in spite of iCloud Photos would be, if we are travelling or cannot connect to the internet for a long time and want to transfer the new photos to the Mac, that have not yet been uploaded to the Mac, for want of an available network. But then you would have to select the new photos manually and only import the photos where you know that they are new. And remember later, when you are having again a network connection, to check for duplicates.

If you are syncing your libraries via iCloud, why are you also syncing via USB. This is a recipe for creating duplicates. Just let iCloud do it.