You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Photos: mark as NOT duplicate

I find the "merge duplicate Photos" very useful, but how about the ones that Photos got wrong?

Some pics are similar, but not dupes.

I would like to mark these as NOT duplicates, so Photos recognises them as individual pictures.

They have different file names (same date different timestamp), what else can I do?

Thanks.

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 13.4

Posted on Jul 10, 2023 12:33 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jul 10, 2023 12:40 AM

The only way to remove a pair of suggested duplicates without merging them is to add a tiny adjustment to one of the duplicates we do not want to merge. See: How to remove suggested Duplicates from the Duplicates album - Apple Community


You may want to send a feature request to Apple using the feedback form to request the ability to remove photos from the duplicates list, if we need to keep them without merging. Feedback - Photos - Apple

I am also missing such a tool. Most of the duplicates photos is showing in my library are different versions of the same photo that I created intentionally.

5 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jul 10, 2023 12:40 AM in response to TRATRA

The only way to remove a pair of suggested duplicates without merging them is to add a tiny adjustment to one of the duplicates we do not want to merge. See: How to remove suggested Duplicates from the Duplicates album - Apple Community


You may want to send a feature request to Apple using the feedback form to request the ability to remove photos from the duplicates list, if we need to keep them without merging. Feedback - Photos - Apple

I am also missing such a tool. Most of the duplicates photos is showing in my library are different versions of the same photo that I created intentionally.

Jul 10, 2023 12:57 AM in response to léonie

Thanks Léonie, I guess I was expecting the feature to behave like the People/Faces where you can indicate if someone is in the photo or not ...


Yes, tried your tip from the article and that works well, thank you.


Now, what about photos that ARE duplicates and not being recognised bij Photos? Any ideas on that?


Jul 10, 2023 1:06 AM in response to TRATRA

Photos is a bit slow to present duplicates. For a large library it may take months until all duplicates have been found. I would just wait a bit longer. The reason why it is taking so long is, that Photos seems to use the result of the scan for objects and scene types to compare the content of the photos.


There should not be any true duplicates in the library, as Photos is alerting us on Import, when we are trying to import the same photo twice, sp photos will mostly show similar photos as duplicates.

If you are in a hurry to find duplicates, you could try one the third-party duplicate detectors, that are known to be safe and do not damage the Photos Library. I am using Power Photos as a second browser for my Photos Libraries, to merge and split libraries, show the metadata in a list view, and more. It also has a duplicate detector, but you would need the full, paid version.


Jul 10, 2023 3:03 AM in response to léonie

Thank you again Léonie,

"There should not be any true duplicates in the library, as Photos is alerting us on Import, when we are trying to import the same photo twice, sp photos will mostly show similar photos as duplicates. "


I found out this is not always the case, specially with imported images that are not necessarily pictures that have been taken with a camera.

Anyway, I have used 'Duplicate Annihilator' in the past I am giving Power Photos a test run, also because I work with multiple libraries and looking for the best way to keep everything running smoothly.

Jul 10, 2023 3:37 AM in response to TRATRA

Yes, the duplicate detection on import can only detect exactly identical files. If someone is sharing the same image with us over and over again, it will create similar files, but not identical files, also downloading from an iPhone or while changing the format to JPEG will disable the duplicate detection and we will be left with similar files. That is why Photos primarily needs the detection of similar files.


Photos: mark as NOT duplicate

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.