Qnap Duplicate Photo Finder

[Brayan Jacobsen]

Theres quite of number of freeware duplicate file finder programs available. I used one that would find duplicates based on metadata but I've moved to a new computer and can't remember the name (sorry). With a single click you can select the duplicates and then delete them.

Option 2 would be to store them on a NAS, something with deduplication/compression even roll your own TrueNAS (you need a lot of ram here too), and let it deduplicate and compress the files, using less over all space.

A digital photo will have what is called EXIF data which contains a lot of information about the photo including the date and time of the exposure. This data does not change like the file date and time when copied. Shotwell can do an import using the EXIF data in the file and not the date and size of the file. Have a good amount of space and use the Copy to function and not the Move. It will copy the photos to a new file structure based on the date taken and will only copy one version unless the EXIF data has been altered. It will do movies too.

A simple answer would be using Adobe Lightroom -lightroom.html that will easily take care of duplicates (both photos and movies). There is a trial period that should be sufficient for your task, and the subscription is only 10$/month.

In general, I recommend you use the free ExifTool to organize your media library first, sorting the images into folders by date, camera, etc. That will make it much easier for you to identify useful data and find duplicates more easily and precisely. That can also be an excellent opportunity to organize your photos/movies and keep the collection clean, tidy, and organized in the future.

Today I want to show you guys how to make the switch from your Google Photos and/or Google Drive account and onto a QNAP NAS. Whether you are looking into migrating your data from the cloud to a private server because of safety, cost or the recent announcement by Google to stop unlimited photo backups in June 2021, there are lots of good reasons to make the jump. Additionally, there are several different ways to move data over from Google to QNAP NAS available. Today I want to talk about two of the most reliable ways to do it, namely using Google Takeout and QNAP Hybrid Backup Sync. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, but below is a guide to walk you through both methods on a QNAP NAS and both methods will cover Google Photos and Google Drive, to migrate your data over manually or automatically.

There are TWO main QNAP applications for photography, namely QNAP Photo Station and QNAP QuMagie, however, there is also a wide range of cloud-NAS migration/sync tools too (in the form of HBS 3, HybridMount and more) which I will also touch on later, but for now, we should take a look at the photo apps on offer for photo storage on QNAP NAS when moving away from Google Photos and Google Drive.

The first and original photo management application from QNAP, Photo Station has evolved massively since it was first revealed and is now one of the most adaptable photo programs on any NAS platform. Allowing a larger degree of internal file folder access that is not available from other brands to the same degree, the Photo Station application manages to provide a huge amount of access and fluidity, while still being hugely customizable to boot. Additionally, there are numerous share and privacy options on this photo application that other NAS brands have only just recently implemented, that QNAP has had since the beginning.

For those that are not aware, all the data that you send to google (via app synchronization, backups, cloud shares, emails, everything!) can actually ALL be downloaded if you want. You just need to head over to Google Takeout and from there you can download your data (from each app, or all) and then you can move that data to your NAS ecosystem as needed. Below is how you would use Google Takeout to move your Google Photos and Google Drive data over to a NAS. Let start!

Once you click Create Export, Google will then prepare your download. Depending on the size of your photo/drive data, this can take minutes, hours or even days. You do not need to keep this window open the whole time, as Google will email you with a link to when it is done to download everything.

Depending on how you catalogue your Google Photos, inside you will find a folder for each year of photos and or every album you made yourself in the Google Photos application. These are the photos we want to move onto our QNAP NAS.

Next thing is to move them on to the NAS. This can either be done by simply dragging and dropping the Google Photos folders into the QNAP File Station application or you can map the NAS as a mapped network drive and carry it over inside your own File Manager in the OS (learn how to map a network drive HERE).

The amount of time it will take to upload the Google Photo and/or Drive data will depend on on the size of the data AND your network connection. But there is an upload status time and status bar at the top right of QNAP QTS.

From here you can select each of the folders and sub folders (if appropriate) that you want each of the media tools (Photo Station, QuMagie, Media servers and more) to index and build your collection from (including scraping metadata, thumbnail generation, albums, etc)

Once the application is installed and started, it will present you with a list of supported sync and backup options that the QNAP NAS will be able to run, connecting local, cloud and USB backups. I selected an Active Sync Job but you might want to select one more appropriate to your hardware and network requirements.

Next, you will need to choose what kid of sync job this is, in terms of data retention and updates. You can either select data to be mirrored on the NAS/Google-Drive, or you can have it that only changes to one are copied over (eg as new photos are added to your Google Drive, they are copied to the NAS, but if you delete them from your Google Drive to make space, they are kept on the NAS anyway). Select which one is appropriate to you and your storage needs.

Next, you will need to select what the QNAP NAS will do if it copies a file over that is identical to a file already in the folder (ie duplicated photos), you can choose to ignore, overwrite or make a new version to be safe.

This can be ignored, but it DOES allow you to make sure larger and less appropriate files in the Google Drive are ignored and/or not copied to the wrong location (eg video, system files, etc) as well as allow file size limits and date of creation limits.

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However, I have a few folders I'd like to permanently see in the finder sidebar, and I can't for the life of me figure out why I can't add them. I've already added them to the login items, but they don't appear in finder automatically. Further, when I try to grab one of the folders and drag it over to the "locations" sidebar, it doesn't stick.

You can see in the screenshot there are a few ways the NAS shows up: grossserv, grossserv(AFP), and I can also get to it through the "Network" in locations. These seem like they all point to the same place. (the duplicate "network" path makes sense to me, but I'm not sure what the AFP is all about...) Regardless, the issue is that whenever I try to drag one of the NAS folders to the "Locations" sidebar, it just doesn't stick.

Thanks for joining us in Apple Support Communities! We understand you're asking how to add a folder from your external hard drive to the Locations section of the sidebar in Finder on your Mac We're glad you're here, and we can provide some guidance.

If you have images and videos stored on your computer, external hard drives and other media, and you have been suffering from all the associated backup and organization issues, you might want to look into ways to consolidate your data. One of the best ways to do that is to get a Network Attached Storage (NAS) or a Direct Attached Storage (DAS) array that can host two or more large capacity hard drives that can be bundled together to form a single storage volume (to read more about this, see the DAS vs NAS section of my Storage Considerations for Photographers article). Once this single storage volume is created, all the data can be moved to it and directly accessed. With a large storage array keeping all the data in a single location, you no longer need to worry about mounting and dismounting external drives and searching for files when you need them. A storage array can be designed to have redundancy built-in in case of a hard drive failure, and automatic processes can be set up to fully replicate data to another storage array for backup / synchronization purposes. So if you have been struggling with keeping all your data organized, you might want to give NAS / DAS arrays a try!

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