Photos.app and various duplicates after import via USB and My Photo Stream

johnnyjackhammer wrote:

In one scenario I see duplicates where:

Image one is an .heic sized 2268 × 4032 and it's twin is a .jpeg sized 2618 × 3491

1 - I gather this is an import setting.... where I am supposed to turn off "Copy items to the Photos library"?

In the other scenario I see duplicates where:

Image one is a named IMG_5457.JPG and it's twin is named s67848349357__F35E887A-261C-493D-804F-96059F12D66B.fullsizerender.HEIC

This seems to happen to photographs that I have sent via Apple Messages.app only. Question is why are messages that I have sent without modification being saved as a separate version and how to stop this?

2 - I have "My Photo Stream" turned on how to avoid duplicating images that reside there when importing.

I don't use" iCloud Photos"

Settings on my iPhone where set to "Keep Originals", I changed it to "Automatic" to test if this was causing duplicates.

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/32ae5cfe-36ee-4c02-b03d-e04272e0bbc6

1 - No. If you uncheck that box in PHotos General preference pane you'll have a referenced library where the photos are stored elsewhere other than inside the library. That's not a good idea.

2 - if you have the My Photo Stream turned on and are importing photos while the iPhone is connected to the camera by cable that's the reason you may be getting duplicates. My Photo Stream will import photos into the Mac's library:

So either use the cable import exclusively or the My Photo Stream.

For duplicate photos already in your library this would be the better app to identify and mark them:

You want an app that will identify the potential duplicates, put them in an album or mark them with a keyword for easy retrieval and deletion by you. You don't want one that does the deletion itself for obvious reasons. 

I've run tests on the these two apps with the following results and found them to be safe to use:

PhotoSweeper - $9.99 - Demo version available.

PhotoSweeper compares bitmaps and/or histograms so it can detect duplicate images even if they have different file sizes, file names, image sizes and capture dates.

You can further identify photos with keywords and given them new titles. There are a number of AppleScripts offered by users in the Thematic Index to Photos for Mac related User Tips.

Some examples:

Batch Change Title to Capture Date-Description-Padded Sequential Numbers

Batch Change Title to Capture Date-Location-Description-Padded Sequential Number

Batch Change Title to Text w/Padded Sequential Numbers

Script: Batch Changing the Title to the Capture Date

If you need a photo outside of the library you can export it using the title as the new file name. This keeps the identification of the image up front at all times.

I have no idea. I don't shoot RAW so have no first hand experience with it. It might mean the jpegs are the Smart HDR format. I have that checked on my iPhone but have never seen the D in the file name. But then I don't shoot both RAW and jpeg.

Some pictures with special effects, like "live" photos or "portrait" mode and so on, generate two (or more?) files. There may be one file that has all the extras in it and another that is just the still image for regular folks.

Also, some of the weird file names you see are ones generated by Photos. The file names that cameras give images can get very confusing. I wonder, with me, my wife, my daughter, and her husband all taking pictures with different cameras, and all of us getting new cameras over the years, how many files named IMG_0123 I have! Photos renames them with a unique ID and keeps a data base so we can see the original name. There's a lot going on behind the scenes in Photos....

If you don't have a lot of videos you could AirDrop them to the Mac on a weekly basis or so.