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How to avoid duplicating photos in the albums ?

Why Photos allow duplicating photos in the albums ? (makes no sense). I want to connect and consolidate few albums into one. If it happens there are the same photos in several albums, Photos just duplicate them in the new album and in this way you may have few hundreds duplicated photos in the new album, that is very annoying. Could there be anything more simple and convenient than just simply not to allow the same photo to appear twice or thrice in the album ? Who would need that ?

MacBook Pro with Retina display, macOS Sierra (10.12.2), MacBook Pro 2016 15''

Posted on May 26, 2018 2:25 AM

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Posted on May 27, 2018 4:21 AM

I have a similar problem. My shared albums do not show all the photos I selected. So I selected them again. Now I have about ten duplicates. I have another shared album with over 100 missing. I refuse to search for all the missing pictures and select them individually. Very annoyed.

11 replies

May 27, 2018 4:24 AM in response to Old Toad

Photos duplicate the pictures in the albums unfortunately. I move pictures from one album to another album and some of them are already in that album. The result is that now I see the album with many duplicated photos, double copies of the same photos next to each other. Really stupid and annoying ... Am I going now to delete all the duplicates manually ?

May 26, 2018 10:20 AM in response to savita88

Photos in albums are only links to the original photo. Thus there are no duplicated files, only one original file and as many links to that file as you have albums with that picture in it.


A picture doesn't show more than once in an album unless you duplicate it. Adding a photo to an album that already has that photo in it does not show it twice.

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User uploaded file

May 28, 2018 1:26 AM in response to Firebird28

My point is that it would be easy to have Photos do the same, i.e. have a choice of adding or excluding duplicates.

Photos can recognize duplicates, when importing. But only exactly duplicate files, not duplicate versions of the same photo.

When I try to import an image file, and it is an exact duplicate, Photos will show it in the "Already Imported" section.

The problem is, if you are importing from an iPhone or another device that is syncing with iCloud or dropbox or another service, that keeps downloading from the cloud in some way, new files will be created, and these files are not recognized as duplicates. But exact duplicates are handled well. You can import the duplicate or decide not o import.

User uploaded file

If you do not see the photos as duplicates in the Import panel, they are probably newer files and the file attributes differ from the files already in your library,

May 29, 2018 3:50 PM in response to savita88

The real problem is the rude ThreadJacker who is confusing the thread and needs to do as I suggsted


if you have a question you would like help with please start your own thread with details about your set up and your question, threadjacking someone else's thread on a totally different subject is Rude and confusing

and as to your question

I can have for example two albums - House and Home and would like to move all the photos from House to Home and to have only one album (and to erase House). There are some photos which are the same on both albums. If after moving the photos from one album to the other, the same photos are shown twice next to each other it is just stupid, sorry ... Who would ever need that ? Would it be not just natural and logical that the same photo is shown only once in a album ??

That is not the way it works so something you are doing is unusual - Old Toad explained the way it normally works in his poet

Photos in albums are only links to the original photo. Thus there are no duplicated files, only one original file and as many links to that file as you have albums with that picture in it.


A picture doesn't show more than once in an album unless you duplicate it. Adding a photo to an album that already has that photo in it does not show it twice.

User uploaded file

User uploaded file

so have you duplicated any of these photo or are they not really duplicates but similar photos?


Get info on the two and see what if any differenced there are (size, dates, extension, etc) or post a screen shot of the two info windows


LN

May 27, 2018 1:09 PM in response to savita88

Photos duplicate the pictures in the albums unfortunately. I move pictures from one album to another album and some of them are already in that album.

Photos has no command to move photos between albums (meaning - adding the photo to another album and removing it from the source album). You can drag a photo from one album to another, and that will add the photo to the destination album, but not remove it from the source album. It is intentional, that you can have a photo in as many different albums as you like. adding a hot to an album does not increase the amount of storage required.


The result is that now I see the album with many duplicated photos, double copies of the same photos next to each other.

If your album is a shared album and not a standard album, you can share the same photo several times to the shared album. Sharing to a shared album is creating a new copy in iCloud.

May 27, 2018 1:18 PM in response to Firebird28

Why was Aperture abandoned again?


Why - very simple, it was not abandoned again. It was discontinued once just over three years ago because Apple left the professional photo software market


This thread has nothing to do with importing duplicates or with shared albums, Photos handles that well - Photo is not Aperture and is not intended to be - it certainly has different workflows required and many different capabilities although in the case of importing duplicates it has the same capability as Aperture -- and Aperture had no support for iCloud Photo Sharing at all- if you have a question you would like help with please start your own thread with details about your set up and your question, threadjacking someone else's thread on a totally different subject is Rude and confusing


LN

May 29, 2018 12:52 PM in response to léonie

I think we are missing the point. It is not about import. I can have for example two albums - House and Home and would like to move all the photos from House to Home and to have only one album (and to erase House). There are some photos which are the same on both albums. If after moving the photos from one album to the other, the same photos are shown twice next to each other it is just stupid, sorry ... Who would ever need that ? Would it be not just natural and logical that the same photo is shown only once in a album ??

How to avoid duplicating photos in the albums ?

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