Easy way to remove multiple duplicated photos from iPhoto

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Easy way to remove multiple duplicated photos from iPhoto

Dear Apple Community,

I have nearly 50k photos in my iCloud. These are synched to my Mac and iPhone. Sometimes, when I upgrade my iOS on either device, the synch stops working, and I usually need to remove and re-download all photos, which is a pain.

Somewhere along the way, perhaps when there are synching glitches, I've ended up with dozens of unwanted copies of specific photos. In my whole collection, I probably have 1000's of duplicates that I don't want.

Are there any utilities or apps that could help me clear these out? If I try to do it manually, it takes a long time, plus I am worried that deleting on one device may not always remove the duplicates from the cloud, even though the prompt says that it will.

Thank you very much!

JP

iPhone 12 Pro, iOS 15

Posted on Aug 18, 2022 5:18 PM

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Answer 1

Aug 18, 2022 9:33 PM in response to TJP_92

Hi

There are no facilities in photos to automate finding and deleting duplicates, so either

* manually,

* or using an app designed to work with the photos library (Ie one that marks the photos or puts them in an album, and lets you review and then delete them, rather than doing the delete itself.

Do NOT use a general file duplicate finder not designed to work with the photos library. They will damage your photos library and likely cause loss of your photos. (This is why apple says not to use them)

There are two known to be safe and recommended by experts here:

I personally use 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/

Both are paid apps. PhotoSweeper is the lowest cost and can recognise duplicates based on content, but PowerPhotos provides a lot of functionality in addition to the duplicate detection.

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Easy way to remove multiple duplicated photos from iPhoto

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