Some of them are very dangerous and could damage the Photos Library beyond repair. There are quite a few applications claiming to find duplicates automatically. Browse it and delete all photos that are redundant. This smart album will only show the photos not in the Keepers album. Now you can create a smart album (File > New Smart Album) and set the rule to 'Album is not Keepers'.

Select all photos in the Days with ⌘A and create an album from them with ⌘N.Set the Photos Library to display 'Photos > Days'.We could use this view as a starting point when looking for keepers. The 'Days' are suppressing duplicates and similar photos. Photos is using the duplicate detection to brush duplicates under the carpet, so we do not see them any longer in the curated 'Days' view of the library. Photos is spending a lot of time looking for duplicates, but this does not help us to get rid of them. Does Photos have to ability to get rid of the duplicates or will I have to spend cash on some third party software to clean up this problem? Same file name and type, same size, same metadata etc.īy far the easiest way to manage photos is by using iCloud sync, but that does have a monthly cost. Images will only be recognised as the same image if the file being compared on your mac is exactly the same as the one on your phone. Photostream is also being phased out, and hasn't been improved for some time resulting in an inability to work with some file types. Best solution DON’T mix iCloud sync with USB sync. Even worse, any photo uploaded from your mac to iCloud, then downloaded to the phone with iCloud can be seen as a new image when synced via USB. If iCloud re-downloads an image that has been optimised, that can result in it being seen as a new image. However you'll still have duplicates on your mac in jpg format which you could choose to delete from the imports folder (if you are sure you still have the originals on your phone)Īnother cause can be when iCloud photos is enabled on the phone with “Optimise phone storage” set. (This is the most likely cause, and the easiest one to check for). The phone will then send the files in the original HEIC format instead of JPG. Iphone setting photos>transfer to mac or pc - set to automatic might convert the files. Don't mix them.ĭifferent versions of IOS can also impact this EG when photos are converted from HEIC to JPG. Pick one method of transfer from phone to Mac, and stick with it. Often the result of using different methods of transferring the files (EG texting / direct connection / photostream / iCloud). This problem normally comes when the files are changed in some way as they are transferred to the Mac.

Apple photos detect duplicates