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Mac Photos App & Detecting Duplicates

Hello, I just set up a new iMac running Mac OS Monterey v12.6 and restored from my previous Mac's Time Machine backup. I opened the Photos app (v7.0) to make sure everything transferred and everything looked fine. I noticed at the bottom of the Library tab, it had a progress bar that said Detecting Duplicates, etc. I had 100,000+ photos and it seemed to be stuck on the 75% for hours. So, I left it on for a month straight in the background and it finally finished.


Once completed, I figured "detecting duplicates, creating memories, detecting faces" (or however it was worded) meant at the end it would allow me to review duplicate photos similar to the way the new iOS 16 Photos app does. However, there is no Duplicates tab in MacOS Photos. I read elsewhere the only reason why the Mac version does this is so it doesn't include duplicate photos in memories (which makes sense). Is the only way to detect duplicate photos still done the old fashioned way by creating a Smart Album and going from there? Wish they would incorporate this into Ventura. Thank you in advance!

Posted on Oct 27, 2022 12:29 PM

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Posted on Oct 29, 2022 5:22 PM

I spoke too soon. I posted this on the 27th of October only to be notified on my new Mac a few hours later Ventura was available for download. I updated to Ventura, waited a day, and then the Duplicates tab appeared in the Photos app (now running Photos v8.0). False alarm!

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Mac Photos App & Detecting Duplicates

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