Question about Photos 7.0 seemingly stuck in a loop of "Analyzing Scenes, Detecting Duplicates, Curating, Composing, Gathering

Question

Question about Photos 7.0 seemingly stuck in a loop of "Analyzing Scenes, Detecting Duplicates, Curating, Composing, Gathering

According to the answer to a similar question it may take days or weeks to complete and it is safe to quit the app and restart etc. I have a library of almost 70,000 photos - part of the reason is that I once briefly turned iCloud photos on on my iPhone after loosing 3 months of photos and video when a phone got bricked and ever since then and after turning it off, its been like the magician's nephew in fantasia - seemingly endlessly self duplicating photos and videos and apple "Photos" never recognizing that they ARE THE SAME PHOTOS AND VIDEOS!!! So you can imaging that me seeing "Detecting Duplicates" is something I'm very curious to see the result of. Not to mention "Curating Best Photos"? Can someone tell me what the result of all this is when it eventually completes? Does it remove duplicates? Does it identify which was the original and keep that one? ( "Curating Best Photos") How do you know when it's done? What happens when it completes? Apple, this is so un-apple - Steve Jobs is turning in his grave, may he rest in peace. Fix this!!! Oh and the VIP folder in iCloud browser remains unreadable !!!! Does not work!!!

Posted on Nov 1, 2022 9:06 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

TonyCollinet

Level 7

24,044 points

Nov 1, 2022 10:15 AM in response to dariusfromtopanga

Those searches are just for memories, and the day/month/years views. It has nothing to do with removing duplicates from your library. For that functionality built into photos, you need to upgrade to Ventura.

Regarding why it is happening in the first place:

This problem normally comes when the files are changed in some way as they are transferred to the Mac. Often the result of using different methods of transferring the files (EG texting / direct connection / photostream / iCloud). Pick one method of transfer from phone to Mac, and stick with it. Don't mix them.

Different versions of IOS can also impact this EG when photos are converted from HEIC to JPG. Iphone setting photos>transfer to mac or pc - set to automatic might convert the files. Try setting this to "keep originals". The phone will then send the files in the original HEIC format instead of JPG. (This is the most likely cause, and the easiest one to check for). However you'll still have duplicates on your mac in jpg format which you could choose to delete from the imports folder (if you are sure you still have the originals on your phone)

Another cause can be when iCloud photos is enabled on the phone with “Optimise phone storage” set. If iCloud re-downloads an image that has been optimised, that can result in it being seen as a new image. Even worse, any photo uploaded from your mac to iCloud, then downloaded to the phone with iCloud can be seen as a new image when synced via USB. Best solution; DON’T mix iCloud sync with USB sync.

Photostream is also being phased out, and hasn't been improved for some time resulting in an inability to work with some file types.

Images will only be recognised as the same image if the file being compared on your mac is exactly the same as the one on your phone. Same file name and type, same size, same metadata etc.

By far the easiest way to manage photos is by using iCloud sync, but that does have a monthly cost.

Reply

Question about Photos 7.0 seemingly stuck in a loop of "Analyzing Scenes, Detecting Duplicates, Curating, Composing, Gathering

Similar questions