Photos app has bunch of pics, PICTURES folder has hardly ANY pics?

Which system version do you have installed on your Mac?

If you upgrade to macOS 13 Ventura the Photos.app can scan for duplicates for you. But then you should let Photos manage the photos for you. Tools like Gemini or other third-party duplicate finders looking for duplicate files can damage the Photos Library. Using third-party apps to remove duplicate photos might damage your Photos for macOS library - Apple Support. There are only a very few tools like PowerPhotos that have been designed specifically to work with Photos Libraries.

I see, you have tried to get the photos out of Photos by copying them. This way you will only save the previews and not necessarily the high resolution originals. If you want to save your photos on folders in the Finder, select them all with ⌘A, then use the command "File > Export > Export unmodified Originals" to save the high resolution originals, or "File > Export > Export ... photos" to save the edited versions.

You can save all this trouble by upgrading to macOS 13 Ventura.

RBlue wrote:

My Photos APP Library has almost 5,000 photos/videos, but the actual Pictures folder in Finder only has 1500-ish. I can't get all of my photos copied from the app into the actual folder so I can scan them for duplicates, UPGRADE my MAC, etc. I can't even do my updates because I don't have enough space!

#1 - I've been trying to find an answer for DAYS and I am at my wits end. Everything talks about "Pictures file" but that's the problem...How can my Folder be so empty but the app have so many photos?

#2 - Someone PLEASE say they know how I can get all my photos into finder's PICTURES folder? (Without doing it one by one?)

#1 - Go to your Photos/General preference pane and see if you're running a "managed" or "referenced" library.

A "managed" library copies the image file into its library package and uses it there. A "referenced' library just points to the original/source file which can be anywhere on the drive. However, if the sources files are moved that will cripple the library.

The default is a "managed" library which I'm guessing is what you gave. If you want the loose image files in the Pictures folder too reside in the library package drag then onto the Photos icon in the dock while the library is open.

#2 - So do you want all of photo image files to be loose in the Pictures folder or in the Photos library where you can sort, edit and manage them?

The reason I need these pics to show up in this folder is because there is no other way (I've found anyway) for me to use any photo sweeper, Gemini, Disk Drill, etc to find duplicates of my photos.

Try use an app designed for finding duplicates within Photos, like PowerPhotos

https://www.fatcatsoftware.com/powerphotos/

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:

PowerPhotos - $29.95  

PowerPhotos is the iPhoto Library Manager version for Photos and is very powerful. Although more expensive I would recommend it as it has more capabilities than the others like the capability to merge Photos libraries or copy photos, both original and edited versions, along with their metadata between libraries.

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.

Those are the only two apps that I use or recommend to use for finding duplicates within a Photos library.

You are very welcome 😊