Delete duplicates using only MacBook

Hi,

I hope following methods could help your issue.

If your duplicates are in your photo library, the Photos app has a dedicated feature for this.

Open the Photos app.

In the sidebar, click Duplicates (under the "Utilities" section).

You can select individual sets or press Command-A to select all.

Click Merge [number] Items to keep the highest quality version and move the rest to Recently Deleted.

While macOS doesn't have an automatic "delete duplicates" button in Finder, you can use Smart Folders to find them manually.

Open Finder.

Click File in the menu bar and select New Smart Folder.

Click the + button in the top right.

Change the search criteria to Kind is Image (or Document, etc.).

Sort the results by Name or Size to locate identical files next to each other.

Select the duplicates, right-click, and choose Move to Trash.

FYI, with macOS and APFS volumes which is the default for the internal drive ever since macOS 10.15 Catalina, but was also used as far back as macOS 10.13 High Sierra if the internal drive was an SSD. With the APFS file system it is very hard to create physically separate duplicate files because the macOS default to only creating links to a single physical copy of the data as the physical data is only stored one time unless the file is edited, then only the changes to the file are taking up extra space. Copying a file from one location to another on the same APFS volume results in only one physical copy of the file with a new link for each "copy" made.

The only way you likely have multiple physical copies of the data is when you download multiple copies, or restore data from a backup.

You may want to check out the paid third party app Storeograph which understand all these things according to their website. See the FAQ regarding duplicate files here:

https://storeograph.com/en/faq.html

AFAIK, no other app truly understands how macOS storage works. I've never used this app, but the video on their site shows how various features of the app work which is impressive to me. The developer is a respected forum contributor as well.

Tom Perkins1 wrote:

First, THANK YOU for responding and apologies for delayed response!!

Regarding multiple documents et. al,

Using Finder, sure enough, there they were. All ten thousand of them! (-: Question, and I think I already know the answer. Can I only delete one item at a time or is there a way to zap/merge all of them?

To simultaneously delete multiple files on the Mac, you can click and drag to place selection box around any contiguous files. Once selected, you can select from the menu bar File > Move to Trash or press command-delete (⌘⌫)

If the files are in a list, you can click to select the first item, then press and hold the shift key and click the last listed item to select all files in between. Then again choose File > Move to Trash or press command-delete.

Also, once selected, you can drag the whole group of selected files to the Trash icon in the Dock.

If all the files are in a folder that contains nothing else that you wish to keep, then of course you can delete that folder.

Delete files and folders on Mac - Apple Support

Secondly, and I am obviously (I think) doing something wrong. Going to Photos I have over 5000 images. "Duplicates" say I only have one. Do you know a solution for this?

Again, thank you for your time and expertise!!

No, you aren't doing anything wrong.

In the computer world, any file is not a duplicate unless it's a copy of another. In the Photos app a "duplicate" isn't a duplicate unless it's exactly the same as the other, a copy. Shooting three pics in succession doesn't produce duplicates as far as the Mac is concerned.

Managing dupes begins with the user. It's difficult to trust file management to an app that doesn't reason. How will it know what's important to you?

Where are you seeing duplicates? If in Finder, which folders? A Smart Folder will show files that meet a search criteria, but the resulting list are not duplicates; they are the original files.

How is it that you are certain they are duplicated? If you can tell they are duplicates, why not just move the to the Trash.