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Duplicates does not appear in the sidebar Photos Macbook Pro

1) I've uploaded the photos on my iphone 8S to my Macbook Pro, Catalina 10.15.7

2) For some reason it has created duplicates of every photo

3) During the upload process it did not provide any warning that there was a duplicate

4) There is no duplicate finder appearing in the Photos sidebar

5) I have shutdown and restarted my Macbook in the hope that this might fix the problem

6) The problem persists and yes my Macbook is linked to standard power in the wall socket.

How do I delete 4,000 duplicate photos please ?

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Nov 9, 2022 1:22 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Nov 9, 2022 11:00 PM

The Duplicates album is only available in macOS 13. Your system version macOS 10.15 Catalina is too old. You need to upgrade to macOS 13 Ventura to be shown the duplicates in a separate album. Is your Mac compatible with Ventura? macOS Ventura - New Features - Apple (UK)


Ironically, Photos 5 on Catalina is spending a lot of time on searching for duplicates, but it is using the search result just to created a pleasing, curated layout of the photos by omitting the duplicates. You could use the Moments to as a hint to find Duplicates: About the Duplicate Detection in Photos 5 - Apple Community


To find the duplicate HEICs imported from the iPhone in one place look at the "Imports" album. There the photos from one Imports session should appear all together. Or use a smart album:

  • File > New Smart album
  • Set the rule to "filename ends with ".heic"
  • Add a rule "date added is ...." for the day you imported the duplicates
  • Add a rule "camera model is ..." for your iPhone
  • Combine all three rules with "Match all".

This smart album will show you the recently imported heic files together.


You may want to keep the heic files instead of the JPEG versions because of the better compression, as the jpegs are needing twice as much storage. And as your iPhone is set to use the HEIC format, you are risking to import duplicates overland over again, as long as you are importing the photos from the iPhone concerted to JPEGs.




8 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Nov 9, 2022 11:00 PM in response to Womac23

The Duplicates album is only available in macOS 13. Your system version macOS 10.15 Catalina is too old. You need to upgrade to macOS 13 Ventura to be shown the duplicates in a separate album. Is your Mac compatible with Ventura? macOS Ventura - New Features - Apple (UK)


Ironically, Photos 5 on Catalina is spending a lot of time on searching for duplicates, but it is using the search result just to created a pleasing, curated layout of the photos by omitting the duplicates. You could use the Moments to as a hint to find Duplicates: About the Duplicate Detection in Photos 5 - Apple Community


To find the duplicate HEICs imported from the iPhone in one place look at the "Imports" album. There the photos from one Imports session should appear all together. Or use a smart album:

  • File > New Smart album
  • Set the rule to "filename ends with ".heic"
  • Add a rule "date added is ...." for the day you imported the duplicates
  • Add a rule "camera model is ..." for your iPhone
  • Combine all three rules with "Match all".

This smart album will show you the recently imported heic files together.


You may want to keep the heic files instead of the JPEG versions because of the better compression, as the jpegs are needing twice as much storage. And as your iPhone is set to use the HEIC format, you are risking to import duplicates overland over again, as long as you are importing the photos from the iPhone concerted to JPEGs.




Nov 9, 2022 12:19 PM in response to Old Toad

Hello Old Toad,


Thank you for your quick response. I uploaded the photos from my iphone to my Macbook by hooking a cable between the two devices. I prefer not to use iCloud. I do have photo stream on - but when I did an internet search on how to switch it off I did not find an answer. Can you advise me how I can switch off photo stream on my Macbook please? I do not save my photos in the iCloud.


with all good wishes,

Christine

Nov 10, 2022 2:01 AM in response to léonie

Léonie,


Thank you for a very helpful response. I did not know that .HEIC files use less storage than .jpeg files. I've made a Smart Album with the 3 rules as you proposed and this has helped enormously. I will definitely look into whether my old Macbook Pro can upgrade to MacVentura.


Once again, thank you

Christine

Duplicates does not appear in the sidebar Photos Macbook Pro

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