Hi - I have some pics stored in my iPhoto library and also have a lot of pics (many duplicates) in my regular "Pictures" folder on the computer. (I have an iMac desktop). Before I knew better, I could never figure out how to email or share pics from iPhoto so I would always save them to BOTH places. Only problem is ... now I have DUPLICATES. Is there any program or any EASY way to tell the the computer or some program to go thru these pics and show me the duplicates? And it would have to be showing me the PICTURES and not the duplicate names, cuz the names are different on some pics that are the same. For example, I may have some saved in iPhoto with the number as the name, and in my Pictures folder with a name I gave the pic. I don't have time to go thru and do it one by one. There must be something I can do??? anyone?? I want to get rid of the duplicates and just have them in one place, (I guess iPhoto) or even leave some in both places, but just no duplicates. Any suggestions? THANKS
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iPhoto and Pics in my 'Picture' folder, help with organizing / duplicates, etc...
- Thread starter connieran
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Even more simple than that, you can drag all the pictures you have in your "pictures" folder on/into the iPhoto app. And when iPhoto asks if you want to import duplicates, say no! That will take care of the photos with the same name... as for the pictures you named differently, when everything is done importing, click the Photos tab on the left, then click "View" on the menubar, and uncheck "Event Tiles", and make sure it is sorted by date (this won't work so well if you edited the pictures with a different program than iPhoto) This part will suck if you have thousands of photos, but its the only way. Afterwards you can delete your original "pictures" folder 
If you still want an App for finding duplicates, download Gemini (By Macpaw) in the App Store... It's an amazing app that will find duplicate files of any type in your entire hard drive (or an external if you want). But don't expect this to find your duplicate pictures within iPhoto... because the program can't see inside you iPhoto library ^_^
If you still want an App for finding duplicates, download Gemini (By Macpaw) in the App Store... It's an amazing app that will find duplicate files of any type in your entire hard drive (or an external if you want). But don't expect this to find your duplicate pictures within iPhoto... because the program can't see inside you iPhoto library ^_^
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Hi,
I must admit, being an idiot, I have never treated this issue properly either - I have put all my pics in iPhoto but then also have them in the "Pictures" Folder in Finder - is that wrong?
If so, where should my pics be - in iPhoto or the "Pictures" folder? If they are supposed to be in one & not the other, why are both options there/offered?
Bazzy!
I must admit, being an idiot, I have never treated this issue properly either - I have put all my pics in iPhoto but then also have them in the "Pictures" Folder in Finder - is that wrong?
If so, where should my pics be - in iPhoto or the "Pictures" folder? If they are supposed to be in one & not the other, why are both options there/offered?
Bazzy!
I also am an offender of not managing my photos efficiently. I need to get it uptight before it gets really out of control.
Generally speaking, Apple wants you to store (nearly) all your photos 'inside' iPhoto and that is way things are designed. I say "nearly" because I'm sure there are some exceptions.... but basically, photos should live inside iPhoto.
iPhoto is a Digital Asset Manager (DAM) and is designed to handle all the tasks that people commonly do with their images within iPhoto itself. There is an iPhoto library (a package) that holds both the folder structure with all the images themselves, and also the database that keeps track of what happens with the images.
In the normal course of events, once an image is "imported" into the iPhoto library it is never written to or changed. All of the metadata (keywords, albums, etc) are written to the database. More importantly.... all of the iPhoto editing changes are also written to the database - not the image itself. The final edited image is only "created" when you export the image. (Dragging the image from iPhoto to the desktop is an 'export'). During the export the editing changes recorded in the database are used to create the 'final' image that is exported.
I believe that if you create a "duplicate" within iPhoto you are only creating a duplicate database entry, and not a copy of the original image. This means you save a great deal of space because the text entry is much smaller than a 2nd full sized original image. You can treat duplicates differently.... i.e. make one BW and leave the other colour. Duplicate the BW image so now you can crop one square and the other into a near-panoramic format. Still one image on disk, it's just entries in the database.
The one exception, near as I can recall, is that if you invoke an external editor from within iPhoto then the finished-edited image itself is saved into the Library (i.e. you will have two physical versions now, one the original untouched iPhoto version and the newly edited version of the image. There will be separate database entries for each image, though they are linked so that they will appear in the same albums etc).
I've moved from iPhoto to Lightroom (Lr) primarily (and Aperture for the books.) However, the theory is the same. Sometimes it is just easier to export an image out of Lr (or iPhoto) and do something with it outside of a DAM. In this case, once I'm done with it, I either delete it or import it back into Lr. I don't have images (generally) that exist outside of Lr. I can find everything with Lr, and all my images are available through a single interface. I'm never trying to remember where something is... I just search for it or open up the Album (Collection) where it resides.
Hope this helps.