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I used copy when storing my photos in Photos. Now I want to remove the ones that are already in Photos. How do I know if they are or not? If I store a photo in Photos, will it tell me if it is already there?
There are a lot of them, it's going to be hard to do this 'by hand'.
MacBook, macOS 12.6
Please read the following user tip and restate your question/problem in detail:
Writing an Effective Apple Support Communities Question - Apple Community
What Mac year and model do you have?
What system and Photos versions are you running?
How did you duplicate the Photos, in Photos or before you imported?
If I store a photo in Photos, will it tell me if it is already there?
Yes, you'll get this warning:
If you're running Photos V8.0 there's a duplicate finding feature that scans the library for duplicates (takes a while) and the displays them in a folder titled (drum roll please) "Duplicaates".
If you're not using Photos V8.0 you will 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.
Please read the following user tip and restate your question/problem in detail:
Writing an Effective Apple Support Communities Question - Apple Community
What Mac year and model do you have?
What system and Photos versions are you running?
How did you duplicate the Photos, in Photos or before you imported?
If I store a photo in Photos, will it tell me if it is already there?
Yes, you'll get this warning:
If you're running Photos V8.0 there's a duplicate finding feature that scans the library for duplicates (takes a while) and the displays them in a folder titled (drum roll please) "Duplicaates".
If you're not using Photos V8.0 you will 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.
Just try to import the photos again - in small batches of no more than 500 photos at a time or so.
When you import the photos and there are duplicates, you will be asked, if you want to skip the already imported items, as shown in the screenshot by OT. Tell Photos to apply the "Skip" to all duplicates. Any missing item will be imported. Then you can remove the photos you imported.
I am always archiving the photos I imported on an external drive, just in case I need to import them again. Sometimes a photo stored in Photos might get damaged or accidentally deleted, and then I need my archive of original photos. The photos in the Photos Library should not be our only copy.
Duplicate photos
