How do I get rid of duplicate photos on iPhoto?

Sorry but this is strictly a user to user forum helping people use iPhoto as it is - it is not about speculation or opinion about what should be, could be, might be, possibly may be, etc - it is about what is and how to use what is - iPhoto does not have duplicate detection currently and to help people use the program as it exists the answer to duplicates is a third party program - Duplicate annihilator or iPhoto Library Manager - http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/iplm/ - are the bet ones I've found

LN

Hello,

I've been testing DA and I think it does a great job. Not only does it identify duplicates (I can't be certain whether or not it has catched them all), but it also managed to identify cloned pictures in B/W and also pictures which were extremely similar (shot in a row). All in all, I think it is a great product for the price it retails.

I've used iPLM and DA, and I hope that by now I got rid of mostly all my duplicates.

My 2 cts

.

I am baffled. I can't be doing with all these geeky programs. I don't understand the whole thing about the photos in the library being "masters" and taking up space, while those copied into albums or exported in some way from the original library somehow have no substance. I did rather a lot of splitting and merging before I understood the nature of "events" so now I have rearranged them so that each event represents one month, and they are named eg 201304april, 201111nov. The problem now is that each month contains more than one of each photo. I would not mind removing them manually, but how am I supposed to tell which one is the master and which are not? If I accidentally send the master to trash, will I lose the others?

Are these "non-masters" called thumbnails? Are they calle duplicates?

I read somewhere that if you delete a photo from your library it will disappear from any album you had put it in

How could this apply to photos that have been "exported"?

If these exports have no substance why can i only attach two or three to an email?

Where does Apple expain this to people like me, so ignorant as to be beneath contempt?

my motto: "The more I learn, the less I understand".

I am not stupid, nor an idiot, nor a "technophobe". And I am definitely not alone.

If you can't "be doing with all these geeky programs" then why are you using iPhoto? Why not use some other app, one more suited to your tastes? iPhoto isn't for everyone. If you're not comfortable with basic terminology like 'thumbnails' it might be the best thing.

iPhoto is a database. If you're not familiar with databases then again, another way of working might be appropriate.

Thumbnails are tiny versions of a photo used for viewing them in organising view. They are used all over the internet. Where your original photo might be 4,000 x 3,000 pixels and 5 or so MB in size, a thumbnail will be maybe 400 x 300 pixels and 50kb in size, and so loads faster.

Masters are the original photos imported from your camera.

Versions are virtual copies of your master. Consider a simple case: A master in the Library represent a file on the hard disk. You duplicate it. (Photos Menu -> Duplicate). There is still only one file on the hard disk. Delete one or other of the versions and the Master remains until you delete the last one.

So, if you have duplicates in an Event you can't delete the master from the hard disk until you delete the last of the duplicate images.

So:

I would not mind removing them manually, but how am I supposed to tell which one is the master and which are not? If I accidentally send the master to trash, will I lose the others?

No.

I read somewhere that if you delete a photo from your library it will disappear from any album you had put it in

That's correct. iPhoto works on a Library principle, like iTunes. Every song is in the Library, each playlist simply points to the track in the Library, so a song can be in any number of playlists and use no extra disk space.

In iPhoto, a photo in an Album points to the image in the Library. So a photo can be in as many Albums as you like without using any extra disk space. But as these are only pointers to the Library, then if you remove the image from the Library then it goes from everywhere.

Note that Events are not Albums, they are the Library.

How could this apply to photos that have been "exported"?

It doesn't. When you export you make a copy of the image outside iPhoto and all connections with iPhoto are severed.

If these exports have no substance why can i only attach two or three to an email?

Exports have substance, so I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.

Duplicate cleaner seems to work (sort of) It found many duplicates in my one library but it also missed as many as 2-3 copies in some circumstances. It's still better that nothing and is helping me clean as least some duplicates up. Beware the library I am working on right now it found about 11,000 duplicates as has taken about 24 hours just to delete 1,200 of them. Geeeese Louise its slow!!!