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JBNV Author

Level 1

67 points

How to find & delete duplicate photos in photo app

iPhoto would automatically find duplicate photos but how does photo app on MacBook Pro? I have loads of duplicates so obviously photo app isn't helping automatically, extremely disappointing.

I've read some apps can help but turns out they can make more trouble than keeping duplicates.

Is Apple ever going to address this? This is seriously a problem for many if googled. I have approximately 7,000 photos and would expect photo app to be superior than iPhoto (as it was Apple's "upgrade") but appears to me and many, it is certainly not.

Can anyone help?

Posted on Apr 1, 2017 8:26 PM

Top-ranking reply

Old Toad

Level 10

210,651 points

Posted on Apr 2, 2017 10:49 AM

iPhoto never had the capability to scan photos in the library and identify and remove duplicates. It could check for duplicated during import and not import duplicated at that time.

Photos has the same capability:

For duplicates already in the library these applications will identify and help remove duplicate photos from a Photos Library:

Duplicate Annihilator for Photos - $7.95
PhotoSweeper - $9.99 - Demo version available.
PowerPhotos - $29.95
Photos Duplicate Cleaner - Free

PowerPhotos is the iPhoto Library Manager version for Photos and is very powerful. Although more expensive I would recommend it as it has more capabilities than the others like the capability to merge Photos libraries or copy photos along with their metadata between libraries.

PhotoSweeper compares histograms or bitmaps so can find duplicates of different sizes and different file names and dates.

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16 replies

LarryHN

Level 10

106,124 points

Dec 2, 2017 4:04 PM in response to hillside ranch

What exactly is your question?

Exactly why would you want to ignore the RAW/JPEG pairs - if you have multiple copies of the RAW or the original JEG you still want to handle them

How to find & delete duplicate photos in photo app