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Duplicates in Photos

How do I find and delete/merge duplicates in my Photos in Ventura. Ventura (even after a few days) is showing no duplicates, yet I can visually see duplicates everywhere in my Library. Why is this happening? What can I do to delete... there are about 19000 duplicates and I don't want to do this manually!

Posted on Mar 21, 2023 10:42 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Mar 22, 2023 12:29 AM

You need to be more patient. Photos will have to scan your library for duplicates, and this will take much more time.

For my library with roughly 50000 photos and videos it took more than three weeks, until Photos has shown the first duplicates. This is taking so long, because photos is comparing the contents of the photos and is looking also for similar photos, not just exact duplicates. So it needs tor recognize the objects, the people, the scene, etc, and that requires a lot of processing. It will take even longer, if your library is stored in iCloud and the photos need downloading to be compared.

See: Remove duplicate photos in Photos on Mac – Apple Support (UK)

And note the caution at the top: "(Depending on the size of your library, duplicates may take some time to appear as Photos analyses your photos.)"

This is an understatement 😀


While you are waiting, check, if tehre are problematic items in your Photos Library. If you are having items in a legacy format in your library, that cannot be processed any longer on Ventura, Photos may not be able to check the photos for duplicates. If you are using iCloud Photos, you may be seeing a warning in the status bar. Check the status of your library in Photos for macOS - Apple Support



1 reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Mar 22, 2023 12:29 AM in response to Exasperated_User

You need to be more patient. Photos will have to scan your library for duplicates, and this will take much more time.

For my library with roughly 50000 photos and videos it took more than three weeks, until Photos has shown the first duplicates. This is taking so long, because photos is comparing the contents of the photos and is looking also for similar photos, not just exact duplicates. So it needs tor recognize the objects, the people, the scene, etc, and that requires a lot of processing. It will take even longer, if your library is stored in iCloud and the photos need downloading to be compared.

See: Remove duplicate photos in Photos on Mac – Apple Support (UK)

And note the caution at the top: "(Depending on the size of your library, duplicates may take some time to appear as Photos analyses your photos.)"

This is an understatement 😀


While you are waiting, check, if tehre are problematic items in your Photos Library. If you are having items in a legacy format in your library, that cannot be processed any longer on Ventura, Photos may not be able to check the photos for duplicates. If you are using iCloud Photos, you may be seeing a warning in the status bar. Check the status of your library in Photos for macOS - Apple Support



Duplicates in Photos

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