How do I get rid of duplicate photos on iPhoto?

For what?

Dear Eric,

we just foud thsi thread and understand your frustration. Duplicate Annihilator only use the standard iPhoto API's so any changes done to the iPhoto Librarys is done by iPhoto it self. Now if your iPhoto Librarys data base was damaged prior to running Duplicate Annihilator then things can get out of hand since a damage can get even bigger and based on your description it seems like that is what happened. Then you tried it again on your backup but did you reapir the backup data base before running Duplicate Annihilator again? Failing to do so might very well mean that you again ran Duplicate Annihilator on a damaged library.

I have searched our customer/support database and has been unable to find any support requests under the name Eric Brown. Based on that I would like to say that it would have been great if you contacted us directly for support instead of using this forum. It would probably have saved you quite abit of time and frustration.

Best Regards

Anders, Brattoo Propaganda Software

I'm a legitimate purchaser, in your database. And you're correct, I didn't contact support. By the time I'd lost so much, I had lost trust in the product.

Despite your supposition, I am quite certain that there was no damage to the iPhoto library before I ran DA on it.

Eric Brown8 wrote:

I'm a legitimate purchaser, in your database. And you're correct, I didn't contact support. By the time I'd lost so much, I had lost trust in the product.

To bad, we are here to help. You are our customer and we will do anything we can to help you with your iPhoto issues. But we can't help you if you don't contact us. We take pride in providing support the way we would like to recieve support when encountering problems.

Eric Brown8 wrote:

And you're correct, I didn't contact support. By the time I'd lost so much, I had lost trust in the product.

Despite your supposition, I am quite certain that there was no damage to the iPhoto library before I ran DA on it.

Right, but how do you know? Damaged databases in iPhoto are quite common based on our experience with nearly 3 million downloads of Duplicate Annihilator and almost 10 years of experience in dealing with iPhoto duplicates. Those damages are normally really small ones so they really does not affect anything until you do a large operation such as scanning you rwhole library for paths, meta data etc and possbly also adding data such as comments in a large scale. The very small error may grow into a big one when doing so.

We are not trying to avoid responsibility but we want to help you and all of our custmers to have smoth Duplicate Annihilator experience and the very best thing we can do is to tell what we know both about how Duplicate Annihilator and iPhoto and pinpoint possible and common things that may cause issues. But it is important to mention that Duplicate Annihilator will never ever make any changes to the iPhoto database by itself, all changes will be done by iPhoto itself using the methods and functions that Apple has decided taht iPhoto should use.

Any applicatiion that access iPhoto using the iPhoto APIs will cause those problems if the errors/damages are already there.

Best Regards

Anders, Brattoo Propaganda Software

You've spoken about checking the iPhoto library for damage. Can you tell me just exactly how that is done before I use Duplicate Annihilator?

If your iPhoto is working OK and you can see and use all of your photos then there's no reason to suspect the library is damaged. If you are having problems then the first thing to do is delete the iPhoto preference file that resides in your Users/Home/Library/Preferences folder. Next would be to launch iPhoto with the Option+Command keys held down and repair/rebuild the database and fix the preferences.

You might consider trying one of these duplicate finder apps: iPhoto Library Manager and Duplicate Cleaner for iPhoto.

Duplicate Cleaner for iPhoto is free. iPLM is not but is an excellent iPhoto utility application and my favorite. You can try iPLM in demo mode to see how effective it is. Both let you just mark the duplicates and create an album to dispaly them. Then you can make the decision to move them to the trash (Command+D from an album and Option+Command+Delete from a smart album).

Zenzuata wrote:

You've spoken about checking the iPhoto library for damage. Can you tell me just exactly how that is done before I use Duplicate Annihilator?

Simply hold down the option and command keys while wtarting iPhoto and you can repair/rebuild your iPhoto Library data base.

Best Regards

Anders, Brattoo Propaganda Software

Old Toad wrote:

If your iPhoto is working OK and you can see and use all of your photos then there's no reason to suspect the library is damaged. If you are having problems then the first thing to do is delete the iPhoto preference file that resides in your Users/Home/Library/Preferences folder. Next would be to launch iPhoto with the Option+Command keys held down and repair/rebuild the database and fix the preferences.

All respect for you and your knowledge but iPhoto quite often runs just fine with a damaged iPhoto Library but extensive processing of that library may cause problems since the error grows.

Best Regards

Anders, Brattoo Propaganda Software

That won't tell you if the library or database was damaged. After it runs you won't know if it was or wasn't.

Old Toad wrote:

That won't tell you if the library or database was damaged. After it runs you won't know if it was or wasn't.

Right, but that really isn't the important thing either. The important thing is that the library is not damaged, not the konwledge of if it is damaged or not.

We have tools to determine those things but to the customer it really doesn't matter, they just expect it to work and they should do that.

Best Regards

Anders, Brattoo Propaganda Software

Is there any way I can test your app before purchasing it? iPLM will run a full duplicate search but it won't fix it unless you register the app. Your app will only check 500 images and that way one cannot really see how capable it is. Thanks

Your best way to contact Anders is via their website:

http://brattoo.com/propaganda/

rather than hoping he'll see a post on a thread that's been dead for 5 months.

Email us at propaganda@brattoo.com and we'll find a solution for you.

Best regards

Anders, CEO, Brattoo Propaganda Software

Or not, apparently...

I have been having the problem with iPhoto creating duplicates when importing from my camera (Canon 400D) and from my iPhone. I have been moving all the duplicates to Trash, a tedious business, but today I 'Emptied Trash' and the problem of duplicate importation seems to have gone! I'll keep my fingers crossed but this is what I did...

In iPhoto - select the duplicates you want to eliminate

• Under the Photos menu select 'Move to Trash'

• Right Click on the Trash icon in the iPhoto sidebar and select 'Empty Trash'

That's it, it seemed to solve the problem. I have tried several test imports since I emptied the trash and the duplicate problem no longer seems to be there. Can't explain it but worth a try. Good luck.

Rikx