Duplicate photos

[shmick]

Hi Guys,

Trying to find the best way to get rid of thousands of duplicate photos that I have collected over the years. I have been using an iPhone since 2008 and backing up photos to different methods over the years (Dropbox, iTunes, Google Drive and iCloud in later years) now I also have a MacBook Pro running Yosemite 10.10 and have decided to go through and consolidate all my photos. I have downloaded all the photos from all the online shares and imported everything into iPhoto. Problem is because files have changed names over the years somehow I have no real way of finding duplicates. Im looking for recommendations on how I could find and get rid of these duplicate files maybe with the use of meta data and also any recommendation of how to best organise and sort the photos?

 

[Apple fanboy]

Hi Guys,

Trying to find the best way to get rid of thousands of duplicate photos that I have collected over the years. I have been using an iPhone since 2008 and backing up photos to different methods over the years (Dropbox, iTunes, Google Drive and iCloud in later years) now I also have a MacBook Pro running Yosemite 10.10 and have decided to go through and consolidate all my photos. I have downloaded all the photos from all the online shares and imported everything into iPhoto. Problem is because files have changed names over the years somehow I have no real way of finding duplicates. Im looking for recommendations on how I could find and get rid of these duplicate files maybe with the use of meta data and also any recommendation of how to best organise and sort the photos?

I had the same issue. I downloaded an app to find and remove duplicate photos in iPhoto. Can't remember what it's called but I'll have a look when I get home. If you searched duplicate iPhoto on the App Store you would probably find it though.

 

[ChrisA]

Trying to find the best way to get rid of thousands of duplicate photos....

As was said, there are specialized apps for this but, one why is to short the photos by size. Then just scan by eye. This works only if you have not edited the photos.

 

[shmick]

As was said, there are specialized apps for this but, one why is to short the photos by size. Then just scan by eye. This works only if you have not edited the photos.

That would be a bit of a job with 13,000 photos to go through.

 

[Ray2]

2 apps I've used are GraphicConverter and Photos Duplicate Cleaner (App Store). I would choose the latter as its was faster, simpler to use and more stable. However, GC has come a long way since I used it for finding duplicates and, if you have it, give it a try.

Here's an issue you may run into. Both apps create a file for each photo then compare the files. That takes time and computer resources. Throwing 13,000 images may be beyond the capability of either or your Mac. I found 2,000 images at a time to be doable years ago on an old Core Duo Mac. So I sorted by capture date and created multiple folders I ran through PDC. Worked well. A few dups were not spotted and I could easily live with this.

Depending on what app you edited with your mileage may vary. Some simple editors do not preserve the capture date so the same shot may end up in multiple folders.

I feel for you. I now have a pretty firm policy that if editing apps cannot preserve the original file name plus a suffix I don't use them. Which pretty much stopped my editing on iOS devices. You end up with an organizational mess with these apps.

 

[Apple fanboy]

I had the same issue. I downloaded an app to find and remove duplicate photos in iPhoto. Can't remember what it's called but I'll have a look when I get home. If you searched duplicate iPhoto on the App Store you would probably find it though.

Duplicate cleaner for iPhoto was the one I used. I don't use iPhoto anymore, but it did the job of sorting out my duplicates at the time.

 

[Parkin Pig]

Gemini

I use Gemini to find duplicate files. It has no problem finding duplicate photos even when the file name has changed. The interface is simple and elegant.
I haven't used any other utility as this does exactly what it says on the tin.

 

[stephanrok]

You can use DuplicateFilesDeleter, it is fast way to find and delete all duplicate files