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How Do I Delete Duplicates Pics Without Deleting Pics From Albums?

I have a large Photos library of over 2TB. I used PhotoSweeper Lite to identify over 145GB of duplicate pics that have accumulated over the years.


I have organized my pics into various albums that I have created, and I of course want to keep those pics in those albums. So I need to figure out how to delete the duplicates that are NOT in an album and keep the version of the picture that is in an album.


I understand that PhotoSweeper Lite can create a separate folder in Photos of pics that I can choose to delete (in other words, it doesn't automatically delete duplicates).


Is there a way to identify the pictures that I have placed in albums that will allow me to easily determine which pics to keep and which to delete?


Thanks





iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Aug 15, 2021 3:43 PM

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3 replies

Aug 15, 2021 3:54 PM in response to donhoos66

First tag all the found duplicates with a key word (eg duplicate) then remove them from the folder created by photo sweeper.


Use a smart album with the condition.

album - is not - any and

keyword - is - duplicate


But be careful of this. I don't know how photo sweeper works. If it tags all copies of an image as duplicate, that smart folder will include all of them if they are not in an album. So you'll still have to choose which one to leave un-deleted. The benefit is you'll already have exluded everything that is in an album.

Aug 15, 2021 4:30 PM in response to TonyCollinet

That sounds like it might work, thanks. Let me add a complicating detail. I have all of my "unfiled" pics in separate smart albums for each year. So for example, I have pics in a smart album for 2020 that is composed of "album - is not -- any" with a date restriction of 2020. Doing this allows me to easily find the pics that I need to move into my real albums. So this means that all of my pics are in one album or another....but some of them are just temporarily in these smart albums. Hope this makes sense...


Is there a way to exclude these albums from your suggested approach?


Thanks

How Do I Delete Duplicates Pics Without Deleting Pics From Albums?

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