Apple Explains Why Duplicates Album in Photos Not Showing for Some Users

[klasma]

Well I have over 30,000 pictures, and only 177 duplicates, that’s 0.5 % not bad.

If those are 169-plicates, they may make up 100% of your pictures.

 

[klasma]

Why not show the duplicates folder with a message indicating it won't be indexed until plugged in? Would've saved a lot of Apple support inquires.

Apple isn’t strong on intuitiveness any more.

 

[klasma]

Days?

Maybe it’s also a factor whether you have your pictures in iCloud and only lower-resolution previews on your iPhone. They may have to be downloaded all for analysis.

 

[gaximus]

Well I have over 30,000 pictures, and only 177 duplicates, that’s 0.5 % not bad.

While 30,000 isn't bad I have 18,000. You need to delete some screenshots, 4700 is too many screenshots.

 

[Nate8727]

Weird. I had my 12 Pro Max plugged in every night while I slept and the duplicates never came back (3k before they disappeared). Since I've had the 14 Pro Max, I haven't charged it at night so I'll have to see how it goes.

 

[unQuestionable]

It’s been since release date for my wife’s iPhone 11 and still no duplicates folder. 👀

 

[Robin Bonathan]

had phone a week now and duplicates not showing up, phone is locked and powered every night.

 

[Yr Blues]

I'm seeing a lot of images that are visually similar but not duplicates be flagged as duplicates.

There are old apps that do a better job.

 

[CarAnalogy]

The stupid indexing and background processes myth bogging down the battery is no more, thanks Apple for disspelling that nonsense.

Included a screenshot of my own to prove it even more.

View attachment 2082580

Technically that still isn’t proof. Bugs are a thing. It’s possible the indexing process may not stop when disconnected from power.

 

[PhilBoogie]

I have 40k photos - full. res - on the phone and the duplicates album was there a few days after the purchase, Sep 16. No idea why some are waiting and waiting for it to show up. 🤷‍♂️

 

[theinstructor]

I have thousands of dupes and it found 20. Terrible.

 

[Hildy]

Photos seems a lost forgotten workflow for Apple. How do I still need to copy my favourites album to a shared favourites in iCloud for access? How about smart shared albums? It seems they’ve abandoned macOS based solutions.

 

[szw-mapple fan]

The stupid indexing and background processes myth bogging down the battery is no more, thanks Apple for disspelling that nonsense.

Included a screenshot of my own to prove it even more.

View attachment 2082580

That‘s only for photos. Most of the new device indexing is done on the whole system, which needs to be done regardless of power source because things like spotlight search depend on it.

 

[colticus]

Photos seems a lost forgotten workflow for Apple. How do I still need to copy my favourites album to a shared favourites in iCloud for access? How about smart shared albums? It seems they’ve abandoned macOS based solutions.

I just want them to bring back camera roll

 

[Martin Bland]

I am really intrigued whether this new 'duplicates' feature is a remnant or precursor of CSAM scanning. The fact this capability picks up images that are not 100% perfect duplicates (minor differences) and needs to catalogue your entire library.

I dunno, this seems related to CSAM, it's created some sort of hash that it's comparing between images. Turning on CSAM later based on the work done for duplicates would seem easier.

I haven't seen any news or analysis digging into why duplicates came this year (after CSAM was shelved) and why we haven't had duplicates as a feature well before now. This seems like a precursor or remnant.

If it is related to the CSAM effort, and uses the same NeuralHash, imagine the implications if Apple announces that it tested its NeuralHash algorithm in the field through the duplicate feature “in a privacy preserving way”, and found that there were no false positive CSAM matches so everyone can relax.

I hope nobody at Apple thinks that’s a good idea.

 

[backontwo]

I just want them to bring back camera roll

Doesn’t All Photos under Library do that?

 

[colticus]

Doesn’t All Photos under Library do that?

No. It includes camera roll pics but does not separate between that and all the imported pictures.

 

[_Spinn_]

I must not have any duplicates then since I'm not seeing it and I've been on iOS 16 since it was released.

 

[allenvanhellen]

I'd love it if this feature were expanded to pick the best (eyes open, smiling, straightest alignment, etc.) photo from multiples taken right around the same time of the same subject. It could work similarly to burst photos, where you see what the AI thinks is the best photo, but you can dig in and pick for yourself, optionally deleting the others.

 

[PhilBoogie]

No. It includes camera roll pics but does not separate between that and all the imported pictures.

Hmm, if I go to /Albums, 3rd option from bottom, left and then top right I see 'Recents', which is the previously named 'Camera roll' I see all my photos. Under the Import 'album' I see about 75% of all my photos, which is likely what was restored from iTunes backup. The remaining 25% taken on an iPhone.

 

[colticus]

Hmm, if I go to /Albums, 3rd option from bottom, left and then top right I see 'Recents', which is the previously named 'Camera roll' I see all my photos. Under the Import 'album' I see about 75% of all my photos, which is likely what was restored from iTunes backup. The remaining 25% taken on an iPhone.

Same here. Imports include other sources. Still don’t like the pics I take with the camera being mixed in with imports. There are times when I have to scroll back hundred of pics just to find what I want. The old camera roll it would have took me a couple of seconds to find what I wanted.

 

[PhilBoogie]

Photos seems a lost forgotten workflow for Apple. How do I still need to copy my favourites album to a shared favourites in iCloud for access? How about smart shared albums? It seems they’ve abandoned macOS based solutions.

Yeah it's pretty stale from version 1. Hardly anything has been done to make it more appealing. Not expecting Aperture-level software, but good lord at least keep on continuing to roll out features please. How about:
1. Favourite an album
2. Ungroup RAW+JPG and delete either one
3. List view, so we can sort by file size, aperture et cetera
4. New window
5. Sync smart albums
6. Device feature parity

 

[svish]

Good to know. Some background activities might be happening.

 

[PhilBoogie]

Same here. Imports include other sources. Still don’t like the pics I take with the camera being mixed in with imports. There are times when I have to scroll back hundred of pics just to find what I want. The old camera roll it would have took me a couple of seconds to find what I wanted.

And to add insult to injury, even with these fast CPU's in our phones we cannot have smart albums. What gives?

 

[neuropsychguy]

If you think Apple is foolish enough to let background processes, which impact the user experience negatively, run on battery while in use then I got no words for you.

My phone does tons of things in the background as does yours (assuming you have an iPhone). That’s one reason for the powerful processors and multiple cores.

Apple has a whole section about background processes: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/backgroundtasks

“Longer tasks can optionally require a powered device and network connectivity.”

That’s not a requirement from an Apple. It’s optional.

All these background tasks can affect performance. Most don’t perceptively affect the overall performance of the phone. They all will affect battery life though. I turned off fetch new data for email to save on battery life.

My phone handles all this fine but there are rare lags because of background processes (updates, etc.).