Mac Duplicate Photos

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Hi Nancy, I have the same problem and would like to delete duplicates of my photos. I dont see the steps in your communication with Lise01. I am using : online dropbox website, have photos in files by years, not in Camera uploads, they should have same name too by multiple synchronization between phones, computers, etc. I will be glad for your answer. Thank you in advance, Elizabeth

i have the same issue - i have camera uploads set up and i'm seeing many MANY files duplicated some 4 or more times. all files are in one folder - i'm using the dropbox app on my iphone to upload the photos via camera uploads and i'm seeing them in the my dropbox accessed via web browser - thank you!

However, I'd urge extreme caution using that feature as it seems to have nearly destroyed my library recently. I had tens of thousands of duplicates from corruption to the library, probably due to iCloud bugs, and the merge feature mostly deleted the wrong copies of photos. Thank heaven for undelete.

By "wrong" I mean given two jpegs with the same dimensions/pixel count it would often delete the far larger version and keep the smaller (presumably far more compressed, lower quality) version. I spent several hours on the phone with supposedly high-level creative media support reps and no one could/would tell me what Apple means by "higher quality" which Merge supposedly preserves, except that the last rep insisted that if two files had the same number of pixels they had to be the same quality, even if one is much more compressed/smaller, which is dangerously false information. (Dangerous at least if you care much for family photos.) It's possible there's some other variable that affects quality in jpegs but no one could suggest anything and simply insisted on mathematically impossible answers.

Also, this is partly a matter of preference but given two equal-pixel images Merge seems always to keep the *newest* dated copy rather than the oldest, no matter how small/compressed the file (not a matter of preference). If like me you often back-date scans or emailed photos to match the time they were taken this is not a good feature. I'm not sure when anyone would want to keep the newer but worse-quality version of a file.

Based on phone support Apple might repeat here "but we keep higher quality"--*maybe*, but they owe us an answer to what they mean by "quality", and none has ever been offered except "more pixels" (or HEIC format), which is insane. (I should add, some support reps were outstanding and rebuilt my corrupt library but couldn't fully fix it.)

Sorry, probably more info than you want to know and should probably be it's own post. But I'd check carefully what Photos proposes to merge if you use that feature. And be sure to keep (and backup) full-size copies of all photos on your computer outside the Photos app because like all apps this one has bugs, and some are pretty awful. I'm still recovering from this snafu, two years on, but think I'll finish dealing with it soon.

Your current version, Photos 7 on Monterey, is also scanning for duplicates and similar photos, but does not yet offer the detected duplicates in a Duplicates album for removal, like Photos 8 on Ventura is doing. Photos 7 is only using the duplicate detection to keep duplicates and similar photos out of sight in the curated layout on the Library > Days view. You could use the Days as a starting point to look for duplicates. All items you are not seeing in the Days are potential candidates for duplicates or redundant, similar photos. Just toggle between the "Days "and "All Photos" to see the additional photos that are omitted in the Days.

You could also use a smart album to find the photos, that have been omitted in the days. Select all photos in the days, then add all selected photos to a new album "Curated" (File > New album with selection).

Now create a new smart album "File > New Smart Album), and set the rule to "Album is not Curated". You may want to add a date range, if you only selected the photos from a particular month or year. Combine both rules with "Match all". You could also add a rule "Photo is not Favorite" to protect your favorite photos. Or "Photo is not screenshot", as all screenshots are suppressed in the Days view.

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.

Sorry, my post has been not quite clear. In my example the "Curated" in the Album rule is not an option, but the name of the album, where I added all photos photos from the "Days". You could use any name for the album, where you collect the photos from the "Days". I need this album, so I can check with a smart album, which photos are not shown in the Days, because they are redundant.

See my long reply--I have a huge library (currently 76k, should be 45k-ish) and have spent two years dealing with duplicates. If many pics are important to you I'd recommend spending some time working out a plan to figure out which copies to delete, and really like Photosweeper, but that one takes some thought b/c you choose exactly what criteria to use to delete duplicates (like smaller file, newer date, etc.). Ventura's Merge is v easy but has serious limitations. Good luck!

Unfortunately, there's currently no way to automatically detect and delete duplicate photos. The only thing you can do is to remove them manually from your account. Either via the Dropbox or Carousel website or via the Dropbox desktop application.

1) Go to www.carousel.com (please log into your account if you haven't already)

2) Navigate to the item that appears to be duplicated

3) Click on the little check mark icon overlying the thumbnail of the duplicate (which you can find on the top right of each thumbnail)

4) Click on the three dots icon on the top right of the screen and choose "Show in folder"

5) Note the location of this file in your Dropbox

6) Repeat steps 3 to 5 for another instance of the item that appears to be duplicated

7) Delete the redundant copies from their location

Hey if you able to access some other third party tools can use duplicate photos fixer app easily available on mac app store also. just run it and add your drop box folder in the software its automatically scan all duplicate photos and mark them to delete as per your choice you can delete them if found duplicates click here for delete duplicate photos

Dropbox has become ubiquitous digital drawer of the netizens of the planet. The 8-step guide to remove the duplicates is tedious and ineffective. It's not an impossible job to equip Carousel (or Dropbox interface) with a tool to find and eradicate duplicates. Or point users to install third party tools to do this mundane job, if such utilities are indeed available. May it happen. Amen.

Apple introduced its "duplicate detection" feature in 2022 and it works just as its name suggests. The tool uses on-device AI to identify identical images and aggregate them in an easy-to-find album in the Photos app. Apple says the iPhone classifies duplicates not only as exact copies, but also as photos that appear to be the same but have unique resolutions, file formats, or other slight differences.

3. Scroll down to the Utilities section and tap Duplicates. This is where you can view all the duplicate photos on your iPhone and delete them, either individually or at once.

6. If you want to delete duplicates individually, scroll up and tap Merge on your chosen selection of duplicate images. Then tap Merge [number] Copies to delete duplicates. Go down the line and repeat this step for all the identical photos you want to delete.

I just reported a host in my community that has 33 listings, but the majority are duplicates. 11 are duplicates of one, 11 of another, 3 of another, and 8 of another. The photos, descriptions, and prices for all of these listings are the same within their groups. The customer service agent I got seemed super dense, refused to speak to me on the phone, and would only say that hosts are allowed to create "multiple" listings. I know this much is true, but they have a report function for duplicate listings, so surely they don't want people using the same photos for 11 listings at a time?

I'm not sure whether or not all of these are real places or not or if they are just trying to appear higher in search. This host has over ten thousand listings across the US and seems very shady. (A separate concern is it looks like they aren't complying with local laws, but that's another matter.) The Airbnb terms suggest that the photos should accurately represent the listing. Has anyone dealt with something like this and gotten a real verdict from Airbnb?

@Sarah1349 as @Branka-and-Silvia0 said, how are you sure those are duplicates and not just a few of the same rooms? I have had the exact same situation where I have literally the same apartments and it would be a pain to have to deal with Airbnb just because someone felt I had duplicates without asking me first. Also over 10.000 listings? Please could you give us a link to this hosts profile? I have never seen someone with that much properties

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