You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Duplicate photos

Can't find a way to delete duplicate photos on my iMac or Mac Book Pro. I know that I have many, and it would take a lifetime to look for them individually. Is there a faster way to do so, since I can't find any program in the iPhotos app that will help me do that? Thank You.

Posted on Jul 3, 2020 8:40 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jul 3, 2020 10:03 AM

There are some apps to search inside a Photos library for duplicates. Is that what you want to do? If so 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. 


I've run tests on the following apps with these results:

PhotoSweeper - $9.99 - Demo version available. 
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 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.


That being said there is no reason to ever run any "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up" or anti-virus apps on your Mac. 

For those concerned about security this user tip describes what you need to know and do to protect your Mac: Effective defenses against malware and other threats - Apple Community   


3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jul 3, 2020 10:03 AM in response to lovemac54

There are some apps to search inside a Photos library for duplicates. Is that what you want to do? If so 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. 


I've run tests on the following apps with these results:

PhotoSweeper - $9.99 - Demo version available. 
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 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.


That being said there is no reason to ever run any "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up" or anti-virus apps on your Mac. 

For those concerned about security this user tip describes what you need to know and do to protect your Mac: Effective defenses against malware and other threats - Apple Community   


Jul 3, 2020 1:28 PM in response to Old Toad

Hello, "Old Toad". Thank you so very much for a very helpful reply so quickly too! I especially like your suggestion of getting an app that will search for duplicates and put them in a folder for you, personally, to decide to delete. This way you are sure you aren't deleting anything of value, etc. I will purchase the Power Photos app, since it sounds like it would be well worth the extra money. Thanks again!

Duplicate photos

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.