Force duplicates check in Photos app, macOS

There is no way to force a check for duplicates.

Photos will scan for duplicates, when you are not using the app and no other background processes are still needing processing time.

Just make sure that the Mac is up and running over night. You may also want to restart the Mac and Photos occasionally to ensure that the background processes are still running.

Photos needs to be able to access the Photos Library. If it is on an external drive ensure that the drive is mounted and in a compatible format.

If your library is using iCloud Photos ensure that the Wi-Fi is working and you have sufficient local storage and iCloud storage.

Look at the status bar below "All Photos". Are there any items shown as unable to upload or "On this Mac only"? Such items can block the analysis of your library and prevent the Duplicate detection from running. They need to be removed from the library and converted to a more compatible format.

If you are using the Shared iCloud Photos Library, view it in the "Both Libraries" view. The Duplicates album is only available in the "Both Libraries" view.

I don't have or plan to have my photos in the cloud. What do we do in that situation?

I don't use iCloud for photos at all and the Mac dedupe works fine.

" And they are still being uploaded to iC right now."

That is a problem. The new photos need first to be merged into your existing iCloud Photo Library and compared to the photos in iCloud, before the scan for duplicates can check them.

I'm running MacOS Sonoma 14.1 and have this problem. I've left the mac running with no activity and photos running for several nights. There is no folder/album labeled duplicates. There MUST be a way to tell photos to run a deduplication. If not, big short coming in the product. Any ideas?