Deleting duplicate photos from library/albums

Question

Level 1

9 points

Deleting duplicate photos from library/albums

For a variety of reasons (mainly carelessness) I find myself with over 1000 duplicate photos in my photo library. One of those duplicates also feature in one of several albums or another.

The contents of these albums are very precious.

I know how to identify and delete duplicates through 'Duplicate Photos Fixer Pro' software, but which of the several duplicates in the library do I delete without compromising the contents of the album?

My understanding is that if you delete a photo from the library, it will also delete that same linked photo from the album.

Questions...

1) Is my understanding correct?

2) How do I ensure that I don't delete the wrong photo/s in the library which then may be lost forever in the album?

3) Is there more failsafe software I should be using?

Thank you,

Simon

Posted on Mar 9, 2021 4:25 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

TonyCollinet

Level 7

23,903 points

Mar 9, 2021 4:37 AM in response to sigo23

Hi

First be aware that apple doesn't recommend using third party apps for removing duplicates, because there are some that will damage the library. There are a couple of apps that users here have tested and are believed to be safe. Duplicate Photos Fixer Pro isn't one of those. It claims to be compatible with Photos - but you should do some careful testing yourself first. In particular you shouldn't allow it to delete photos itself. Ideally it should identify duplicates for you, and then allow you to delete them yourself using the photos app.

Now on to your questions.

Yes - your understanding is correct. If you delete a photo from the library that is linked to an album, it will also be removed from the album.

To avoid deleting the wrong photo, you'll have to carfully check if the one in the album is the same one selected for duplication. You can right click the photo in the album and select show in all photos". Do the same with the one you intend to delete and see if they are the same one in all photos.

Alterntatively there is a script that can be used to tell you which album a photo is in:

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-250002459

Regarding alternative duplicate removal apps, the ones normally recommended here are PowerPhotos (I also use this for copying images and data between libraries)

 https://www.fatcatsoftware.com/powerphotos/

 Another suitable app recommended by experts here is PhotoSweeper (I have no personal experience of this one)

https://overmacs.com/

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Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

196,929 points

Mar 9, 2021 6:42 AM in response to sigo23

It might be less work, if you first assign to each photo in an album the name of the album as a keyword. Then you can simply see in the Info for a photo in which albums this photo is.

For example, if you have an album with all your pictures of lighthouses, open this album, then select all photos in this album together with the shortcut ⌘A
Then open the info for the selected photos with ⌘I and enter the keyword "Lighthouse" in the filed, where it says "Add keywords".
Do this for all your albums.

When you now are seeing two duplicate photos side-by-side, select a photo and open the Info with ⌘I . You will now be seeing directly, if the selected photo is in the album "Lighthouse". or "Birds", or "Flowers", etc. Then delete the photo without the keyword.

When I find duplicates in my library, I am always looking at the quality and resolution as well. Primarily, I am trying to keep the original version with the best resolution, the width and height in pixels. The duplicates are frequently downloads from shared albums, tat are having a poor quality, missing location data, missing titles, compared the the original version in the library.