How do I get rid of duplicate photos on iPhoto?

Found some discrepancies so am retesting the applications:

OT

Reran both Tidy Up and PhotoSweeper and they both performed as advertised. However the first test gave my missing original files and I believe it was with Tidy Up. It was more difficult to setup the search and the first time I think I selected the wrong files to delete.

In any case both do work but the user should take care in setting up the search, selecting the dups to delete and deleting them from with in iPhoto.

I just used Duplicate Annihalator, & worked perfect for me. No issues, no crashes. I purchased the full version for $7.95, & with no regrets. 🙂

Also the latest version of iPhoto Library Manager - http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/iplm/ - advertises duplicate elimination help too - I have not tested it

LN

My database was approx 190 GB with a few hundred duplicates salted throughout. I used the full, purchased version of Duplicate Annihilator. It identified thousands of dupes, as I'd expect, and after a quick-ish look I deleted them. Big mistake.

When I started iPhoto up again, my data was corrupted. iPhoto filed to load, then loaded and crashed within a few minutes. I rebuilt the database. The "fixed" database now included hundreds of thumbnail images (considered master images) and had I lost hundreds and hundreds of valid (and valuable, to me at least) images.

Fortunately I was only working on a backup database. I assumed I'd done something wrong. I reviewed the instructions and ran the whole process again. Another dozen hours lost, and another corrupt database.

Perhaps DA works in some situations but I'm not giving it another chance. Photosweeper is less automated and slower to use, but so far I haven't lost anything except duplicates!

Interesting = two totally contradictory posts - 3 weeks ago saying DA totally screwed up your library and it wook weeks to fix it

Be careful with Dupicate Annihilator. I've spent weeks now, restoring my photo database after Duplicate Annihilator made a mess of it. Dupicates were (mostly) lost but so were many critical non-duplicates, and iPhoto began crashing regularly. I'd have been better off deleting the thousands of duplicates one by one.

and now a new post saying that you were using a backup database and so lost nothing

Eric Brown8 wrote:

My database was approx 190 GB with a few hundred duplicates salted throughout. I used the full, purchased version of Duplicate Annihilator. It identified thousands of dupes, as I'd expect, and after a quick-ish look I deleted them. Big mistake.

When I started iPhoto up again, my data was corrupted. iPhoto filed to load, then loaded and crashed within a few minutes. I rebuilt the database. The "fixed" database now included hundreds of thumbnail images (considered master images) and had I lost hundreds and hundreds of valid (and valuable, to me at least) images.

Fortunately I was only working on a backup database. I assumed I'd done something wrong. I reviewed the instructions and ran the whole process again. Another dozen hours lost, and another corrupt database.

Perhaps DA works in some situations but I'm not giving it another chance. Photosweeper is less automated and slower to use, but so far I haven't lost anything except duplicates!

Which is true?

And interesting that of hundreds of times DA has been reommended yours is the only complaint

On the other several people have reported problems with PhotoSweeper - I have never personallhy used it

Bottom line history has proven Duplicate Annaliator and iPhoto Library Manager to be safe and reliable products which I have used and feel conifdent in recommending

LN

Which is true? They're both true, of course. You imply that I have some kind of agenda here, which I don't. I've had issues with DA and I don't think that I've done anything wrong.

In November, in the midst of the chaos that DA created, I posted the first note here. I kept trying to restore my photo database, stubbornly convinced that one more restart/rebuild/whatever would be less work than starting the whole process again.

After posting here, I gave up (throwing away hours and hours of effort, spent over several weekends) and went back to square one. I ran the entire DA process again. The result was the same: a crashing iPhoto and a corrupt database. I spent some time trying to fix that one too (I know, I know) but gave up much more quicky. I returned to the original, backed up database (which was unfortunately prior to the addition of some photos I wish I hadn't lost, but only a few) and started clean. I had the thousands of duplicates back, but thankfully I had a non-corrupt database.

I'm not happy about this, but neither am I a blind flamer. I'm fairly certain that DA works with smaller databases, I've used it prior to this with no issues. But applying it to my larger database was, I can only surmise, too much. Or perhaps it was something unique in the data structure. Maybe it doesn't like .ORF files?

I can't see what other variables there are. As I say, I ran the entire DA process twice with the same result. My computer is fairly new, and has plenty of RAM and lots of storage space. It's had no other issues during this time (knock on wood).

I wasn't going to make a big point about it expect that I received an email about today's post, just as I was back at it, working on deleting dupes again, (with Photosweeper) before prepping a Christmas slideshow. I'm just trying to prevent anyone else from going through what I've been through. Worrying about losing family photos is not a lot of fun.

I've used iPLM's duplicate elimination feature and it works as well (or better) than any I've tried.

Hello,

I found that Google's Picasa for Mac can be used to find duplicated photos within iPhoto library and remove them.

I found this option more convenient since it is both free and quite tested on Mac.

Best,

Roberto

Picasa uses an unsupported hack to access the iPhoto Library. This can damage your Library. Use with extreme caution if at all.

One other thing about Duplicate Annialator is that it appears launch perl just to read the EXIF data and there's huge overhead in doing that for each file you want to analyze.

Robert Nicholson1 wrote:

One other thing about Duplicate Annialator is that it appears launch perl just to read the EXIF data and there's huge overhead in doing that for each file you want to analyze.

If you do not like it do not use it - there are othere alternatives

LN

Duplicate Cleaner for iPhoto is a great free app for this:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/duplicate-cleaner-for-iphoto/id586862299?mt=12

Yes. The two that I think are the best are Duplicate Cleaner for iPhoto and iPhoto Library Manager. iPLM also offers other features making it, IMO, the best iPhoto utility out there.

what do you reccommend then?