Remove date in photos view

I would like to remove the date sort in the photos view or be able to move the pics around manually either within a date or between dates to identify duplicates as some were uploaded on different dates, and I can't compare easily.

That is not possible. The "Photos" view is structured automatically by date and location. That is very different from the events in iPhoto. If you want to sort photos manually, create an album with the photos you want to compare and delete the album again when you are done.

I have an album "Compare" at the top of the sidebar, where I drag any photos to, that I want to compare. You can easily get back from the album to the Moments view by ctrl-clicking any photo in the album and selecting "Show in Moment".

All my albums transferred over from iPhoto from my old MacBook, and I wondered whether they created duplicates in Photo?

Albums in Photos are like albums in iPhoto. They are referencing the photos in the library, but not duplicating them. You can add a photo to many albums without creating duplicates. Only photos you are seeing more than once in the Photos view (Moments, Collections, Years) are duplicates. The migration of an iPhoto Library to Photos does not create duplicates. You will only see photos duplicated in the Moments, if you used an external editor on the photo. Then you will see the original and the externally edited version side-by-side.

Exhausting process to say the least!

How many duplicates do you have? If there are thousands, it might help to invest into a duplicate finder tool:

These apps are compatible with Photos:

• Power photos: Fat Cat Software
• Duplicate annihilator: Brattoo Propaganda Software - Products
• PhotoSweeper: http://overmacs.com/photosweeper.html

If your duplicates are edited versions of the same photo, for example of a different pixel size, Photo Sweeper will be most versatile, because it can compare the contents of the photos based on pixelmaps or histograms, and not just the file attributes for exact duplicates.

PowerPhotos on the other hand might come in handy, if you have more than one Photos Library. You can use it to browse and compare libraries without opening the library in Photos. Also, it will display the thumbnails of the photos with metadata annotations.