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Is there any way to automatically delete duplicate and triplicate photos ? They are all in different spots on photos app

I have lots of photo's and screen shots stored on my photos app, Is there any way other than manually

searching thousands of photos to delete duplicates and triplicates of the same photo and just keep

one stored ? Thanks Tom

iMac 21.5″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Oct 21, 2021 7:03 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 21, 2021 9:21 PM

You have to be very careful, when selecting a Duplicate cleaner. Some of them are dangerous and can destroy the Photos Library beyond repair and you might lose all your photos. Apple is warning against such apps, see: Using third-party apps to remove duplicate photos might damage your Photos for macOS library - Apple Support

  • Make a current backup copy of the library before trying any of these programs. test the backup.if it is readable.
  • Use only a duplicate detector, that is moving the photos to an album in Photos, so you can use the Photos.app to delete them. The dangerous applications are the ones, that are modifying the Photos Libraries behind Photos's back.


Photos has a built-in duplicate detector, that will alert you, when you are trying to import duplicates of already imported photos. If you are seeing duplicates nevertheless, you may have made a mistake, when importing photos, or the duplicates are not duplicates but similar photos in d different format, size, or state of edit. In that case you cannot remove them automatically anyway, but have to select the keepers manually, to be sure you are keeping the best version, with the most recent edits, the best resolution, the correct metadata, the version you placed already into an album or are using in a project.


Usually it is much safer to find out first, why you are seeing duplicates and what kind of duplicates you are having to deal with - similar photos or exact duplicates.

  • PowerPhotos can find exact duplicates or different versions, based on the file metadata (filename, capture date).
  • Photo Sweeper can compare the contents of a photo based on histograms and bitmaps, and can find similar photos in a different size or format.

Both programs will suggest duplicates for deletion, but I am always comparing them manually, pick the best version or keep all of them, and never delete a single photo sight unseen.



4 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Oct 21, 2021 9:21 PM in response to tomgt1952

You have to be very careful, when selecting a Duplicate cleaner. Some of them are dangerous and can destroy the Photos Library beyond repair and you might lose all your photos. Apple is warning against such apps, see: Using third-party apps to remove duplicate photos might damage your Photos for macOS library - Apple Support

  • Make a current backup copy of the library before trying any of these programs. test the backup.if it is readable.
  • Use only a duplicate detector, that is moving the photos to an album in Photos, so you can use the Photos.app to delete them. The dangerous applications are the ones, that are modifying the Photos Libraries behind Photos's back.


Photos has a built-in duplicate detector, that will alert you, when you are trying to import duplicates of already imported photos. If you are seeing duplicates nevertheless, you may have made a mistake, when importing photos, or the duplicates are not duplicates but similar photos in d different format, size, or state of edit. In that case you cannot remove them automatically anyway, but have to select the keepers manually, to be sure you are keeping the best version, with the most recent edits, the best resolution, the correct metadata, the version you placed already into an album or are using in a project.


Usually it is much safer to find out first, why you are seeing duplicates and what kind of duplicates you are having to deal with - similar photos or exact duplicates.

  • PowerPhotos can find exact duplicates or different versions, based on the file metadata (filename, capture date).
  • Photo Sweeper can compare the contents of a photo based on histograms and bitmaps, and can find similar photos in a different size or format.

Both programs will suggest duplicates for deletion, but I am always comparing them manually, pick the best version or keep all of them, and never delete a single photo sight unseen.



Oct 23, 2021 10:39 AM in response to tomgt1952

You want an app that will identify the potential duplicates, put them in an album or mark them with a keyword for easy retrieval and deletion by you. You don't want one that does the deletion itself for obvious reasons. 


With what léonie has said I've run tests on the these two apps with the following results and found them to be safe to use:


PowerPhotos - $29.95  

PowerPhotos is the iPhoto Library Manager version for Photos and is very powerful. Although more expensive I would recommend it as it has more capabilities than the others like the capability to merge Photos libraries or copy photos, both original and edited versions, along with their metadata between libraries.


PhotoSweeper - $9.99 - Demo version available.

PhotoSweeper compares bitmaps and/or histograms so it can detect duplicate images even if they have different file sizes, file names, image sizes and capture dates.


Is there any way to automatically delete duplicate and triplicate photos ? They are all in different spots on photos app

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