Questions on Apple Photos on Mac OS

17 Oct 2022 18:07:58

Richard I

Hi, I use the photos app that come with Mac OS -this serves me well, usually. However, there are two questions to which I cannot find answers.

1) In 'Photos' all photos are stored in the library, and shortcuts are created to them in any albums one may create: -Is there a way of showing which albums a particular photo is present in?

2) Due to over-zealous importing in the past I seem to have a lot of duplicated photos in my library: -Is there a utility or command that I can use to delete duplicate photos?

Can anyone help?
Thanks
Richard

Re: Questions on Apple Photos on Mac OS

18 Oct 2022 09:19:20

Douglas Cheney

I use PhotoSweeper from the App Store and find it is very good

Re: Questions on Apple Photos on Mac OS

25 Oct 2022 21:52:00

Tony Still

I hesitate to write this, given previous discussions about supported macOS versions, but the Photos app in macOS Ventura promises a new feature:

"Duplicate detection
Photos identifies duplicates in a new sidebar item, so you can quickly clean up your library."

[Link]

Re: Questions on Apple Photos on Mac OS

26 Oct 2022 07:25:08

Richard I

Thank you both for your replies. So now I have a route forward whether or not my Mac is able to run Ventura when it comes out … good!

Re: Questions on Apple Photos on Mac OS

31 Oct 2022 20:25:01

Lionel Ogden

I couldn't find Duplicate Detection in my version of Photos in Ventura

Re: Questions on Apple Photos on Mac OS

2 Nov 2022 07:51:54

Andrew Kemp

I think the new 'Duplicates' feature (which shows up as an item in the Photos sidebar, between 'Imports' and 'Recently Deleted') takes a little while to show up.

It was not there immediately after I updated to Ventura (even though the 'What's New in Photos' splash screen explicitly mentioned it as a new feature), but the next day it was there.

Presumably Photos needs some time to analyse your library to detect the duplicates before it can show them to you. I suspect that the 'Duplicates' item might also disappear when there are no known duplicates in your library (e.g. when you have resolved them all by merging the duplicates), but I have not tested this.

Ars Technica's Ventura review shows the duplicates feature in action.

Re: Questions on Apple Photos on Mac OS

3 Nov 2022 14:50:17

Lionel Ogden

Yes you are right. When I checked Photos again today the duplicates option was showing in the sidebar and when clicked showed me the duplicates as pairs to merge. When I merged them all the duplicates option disappeared again and a Recently Deleted folder was showing in the sidebar and this contained a copy of all the merged photos.