My Mac has started importing duplicate photos from my phone

December 7, 2021 1:13 PM

I know the Photos app is supposed to detect duplicates and not re-import them, but for some reason that is not working for many of my photos/videos so now my Photos library on my Mac is getting tons of duplicates. Is there an easy way to detect dupes and delete one copy?
posted by malhouse to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

How are you importing? Are you using iCloud Photo Library, or doing something else?
posted by primethyme at 1:21 PM on December 7, 2021

Response by poster: Not using icloud. I'm just connecting my phone to my laptop via cable and importing in the photos app
posted by malhouse at 1:23 PM on December 7, 2021

There are ways to do this for free or cheap (in exchange for some effort and potentially some headaches) but honestly throwing a little money at a non-scammy app is usually worth it. I have recommended PowerPhotos for this in the past and would use it again.

Please make sure you have a (tested) backup of your Mac before using any tool like this. I am a Mac consultant but I am not your Mac consultant.
posted by bcwinters at 2:33 PM on December 7, 2021 [1 favorite]

Similarly to bcwinters above I've used this application (the iPhoto version) when I had a similar issue and it was helpful. You might also try asking this question on the Apple Stackexchange or just checking past questions because I think it comes up every so often.
posted by jessamyn at 7:34 PM on December 7, 2021