How do I remove duplicate photos in Photos?

I don't know about zfJames, but Photos has duplicated nearly ALL of my photos on my new MacAir program. (WHY?????) I'm an artist and take LOTS of photos. Seriously?? To go through and delete manually would take me a week. That just ***** especially when you go to delete a group and it asks every time 'are you sure...blah blah blah". Hope someone can make a better suggestion. Apple suggests that the 3rd party programs may damage your photo library. What do you make of that, please? Thanks in advance!

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 bitmaps and/or histograms so it can detect duplicate images even if they have different sizes, file names, sizes and capture dates.

I would not recommend Gemini. It's developer is MacPaw which offers software that many around here consider akin to malware. I won't put anything by MacPaw on my Machine. One can't test how the app removed the duplicate files from the library to know if it's going to corrupt the library or not.

I can recemmend the follows as they offered demos which I could try.

These applications will identify and help remove duplicate photos from a Photos Library:

• PhotoSweeper- $9.99 - Demo version available.
• PowerPhotos - $29.95

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 bitmaps and/or histograms so it can detect duplicate images even if they have different sizes, file names, sizes and capture dates.

You can select photos from your Photos app and hit the delete key. This puts your deleted photos into the 'Recently Deleted' album. You can completely erase photos from there or you can recover them if you accidentally deleted the wrong photo. Hope this helps! 🙂

What kind of duplicates do you have I your library?

Did you import the same image file twice? Or do you have several edited versions of the same photo or versions in different sizes? Photos will recognize duplicates when you try to import them and warn you, if it are identical copies of the same image file, but it does not treat edited versions of the same image as duplicates or downsized, smaller files.

Photo Sweeper can recognizes different versions of the same photos, because it compares histograms and pixel maps, while power Photos will only compare the file attributes, not the contents of the images.

BTW, if you import the same image file twice, and Photos warns you about the duplicate, but you insist and import it nevertheless, the image file will only be stored once in the Masters folder of your library. Such duplicates are stored efficiently.

I tested again and imported a photo twice:

There is only one copy of the image file in my library, so this duplicate does not need much additional storage.

Select those you wish to remove. CTRL- or RIGHT-click on your selection then click on the bottom option to Delete.

Finding duplicates is more difficult. I suggest trying PowerPhotos or PhotoSweeper X

Look at the ink at the top of this discussion. Apple is warning against using duplicate removers: Using third-party apps to remove duplicate photos might damage your Photos for macOS library

Applications, that modify the library directly, can damage it beyond repair. You may lose your original image files or all the work you invested into editing and organizing your photos. Never use duplicate removers without making sure, that you have a full, working backup of your Photos Library.

Destroy your Photo library and possible your Mac system softare - Is that Bad for you - it is for most people

MacPaw makes and sells it unethically and aggressively - nothing they make should ever be used on your mac and if you have it you need to get rid of it ASAP -- CleanMyMac and Gemini are nearly as bad as MacKeeper -- Do not install MacKeeper

You must not use any duplicate cleaner that directly modifies the Photos Library. Useonly applications that will create an album with potential duplicates, that you then can delete using the Photos.app. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204968

You may want to read this document: Using HEIF or HEVC media on Apple devices - Apple Support

Your iPhone is probably set to take the photos in the new, space saving HEIC format. And when you import the photos from the iPhone, they are converted to JPEGS.

When you now import again from your iPhone, the previously imported HEIC image will show as new photos, because the version on your iPhone is a JPEG.

Are you using iCloud Photo Library? iCloud Photo Library will transfer the photos as they are, as HEIC files, but your download settings for USB import may be different.

Naming specific applications as dangerous is is risky.

Even Apple did not dare to name them. See:

Using third-party apps to remove duplicate photos might damage your Photos for macOS library - Apple Support

Any program, that directly deletes item from your Photos Library and modifies the library is dangerous. use only programs, that will collect the photos to be deleted in Albums, so you can delete them yourself using Photos.

When I tested the trial version of Clean my Mac 3, for example, I found many damaged photos.

With Power Photos or Photo Sweeper I had never problems.

What do you mean by Photos Library 4, Doug? Which version of MacOS X and Photos do you have installed?

Photos 3.3 on High Sierra is the most recent official version of Photos. Photo Sweeper will work with all all versions of Photos, that have been released so far. For iPhoto and Aperture the following versions are supported:

Either manually b deleting them (select a photo you want to delete and then press command delete to move it ot the recently deleted folder then delete from there ( or wait 30 days for them to automatically be deleted) - or use a safe, tested duplicate identification program like PowerPhotos, Duplicate Annihilator for Photos or PhotoSweeper for Photos to identify then and then delete as above

LN

As posted above

Either manually b deleting them (select a photo you want to delete and then press command delete to move it ot the recently deleted folder then delete from there ( or wait 30 days for them to automatically be deleted) - or use a safe, tested duplicate identification program like PowerPhotos, Duplicate Annihilator for Photos or PhotoSweeper for Photos to identify then and then delete as above

And Photos does not duplicate any photos, users do - you have a problem with your setup or your workflow

LN

OK, thanks. Not sure about the workflow/setup issue. They has been one copy of each for about 2 weeks now (since I bought my new Mac) yet today I noticed it has now replicated nearly all. Haven’t done anything different. Any suggestions to point me to?