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Removing duplicates from your iPhoto library

by Sang Tang Jul 6th 2009 at 3:30PM

While I'm frequently called upon by friends and family to assist in cleaning up their iTunes duplicates, I was recently asked by a friend to help clean up duplicates of a different sort: an iPhoto library. At first glance, I knew this was going to be a tough job: duplicates were littered throughout my friend's library, and there was no visible pattern to it.

So, rather than manually sifting through what was, at the time, a 10GB iPhoto library -- which would've tested the limits and accuracy of my eyes, as well as taking me through my AARP years to complete -- I decided to think different -- 'cause that's what us Mac users do. After doing some research, I stumbled upon Brattoo Propaganda's Duplicate Annihilator (link). The end result was a 10GB iPhoto library trimmed down to 6GB.
Using a host of algorithms, Duplicate Annihilator scans your entire iPhoto library (or selected photos) to detect for duplicates. By default, it does this by comparing the photos' MD5 checksum; however, the photos' CRC32, Exif, file name, and photo dimension information can be enabled for comparison as well.



After finding duplicates, Duplicate Annihilator can perform a host of actions. One is to add a comment to the photos' "description" field. And it can do this to originals as well as duplicates. While users can choose to replace existing content in the field, the safer method is to append to the field, rather than replace it. So, say you have a picture with "Mary getting Carl Weathers' autograph" in the description field, the duplicate of it would have "Mary getting Carl Weathers' autograph-duplicate" instead.



And then there's the Popeil Showtime Rotisserie oven option, which allows for a "just set it and forget it" means of ridding yourself of duplicates: you can move duplicates directly to the trash. In addition you can also set Duplicate Annihilator to empty your trash. That's right, in just several installments, your duplicates will be completely gone. But, unless you're the daring type, you really shouldn't select this option.

As in most situations like this, user discretion is advised. In other words, backup your library before doing anything of this sort (you'll find it in ~/Username/Pictures). Because, as the old saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. And this being the case, permanently deleting pictures may result in several thousand unwanted words hurled your way.

Duplicate Annihilator is shareware and is available for $7.95.

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Nikax

I guess I'm missing something in the logic here: I run the app, it adds "duplicate" to the keywords of a bunch of photos. Using the search function, I can view all of the photos with the "duplicate" keyword. But how do I know that these are in fact duplicate photos? I would need to see the other versions to compare them with. There's an option to add the "original" keyword, but, again, I can't do side-by-side comparisons, can I?

July 10 2009 at 6:04 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Nikax's comment
Brattoo Propaganda Software

Dear Nikax,
actually there is a way to actually compare duplicates with originals side by side using standard iPhoto and Duplicate Annihilator features. Try this:

- In Duplicate Annihilator set duplicate comments to 'duplicate'
- In Duplicate Annihilator set originals' comments to 'original'

Now, the duplicates will have their comments set to "duplicate" the the originals will have their comments set to "original". So let's start the annihilation process.

When finished it's time to do a little magic in iPhoto:

Search for "original" in iPhoto, set the flag (or a keyword) on those images
create a smart album that lists images based on description and make sure that it lists both the originals and the duplicates you will now have an album with the duplicates and the corresponding originals and the originals are a easy to identify by the flag (or keyword).

Ok, we have made a few support entries in this thread but since we don't checks this thread as frequently as our support email inbox, it's a good idea to contact us directly if you have any questions regarding Duplicate Annihilator.

July 11 2009 at 5:24 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Karl

I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but I wrote a little script that does some of the same as Duplicate Annihilator, but it's free. Quite a few have downloaded it and had good results. May want to give it a try first.

http://blog.spoolz.com/2008/11/03/iphoto-applescript-to-remove-duplicates/

July 07 2009 at 3:12 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Napkin Sketch

Great review guys! Thought you might also want to check this review at Mac 101.

http://mac101.net/content/how-to/review-iphoto-tool-duplicate-annihilator-and-thumbnail-annihilator/

July 06 2009 at 9:59 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
stephan.bergen

My biggest beef with iPhoto is EVERYTIME you make ANY sort of change (even rotate) to the original image, it makes a copy of it. These aren't necessarily "duplicates", as it is a modified image. Picasa doesn't ever change the original image (and thus doesn't copy it), unless you specifically ask it to. I haven't used iPhoto since Picasa came out for the Mac.

July 06 2009 at 9:10 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
karl

The problem I have with removing duplicates from either iTunes or iPhoto is that I usually play music from playlists and view photos in albums. When I have duplicates, I don't know which is in the playlist or album. I wish the program(s) would put the non-annihilated tune and/or photo in the playlist and/or album.

July 06 2009 at 8:59 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
moose

Aside from duplicates hogging space- i have another issue, perhaps you have a solution. I have a TON of photos that i've gotten from other people throughout the years that are their original size, around 1MB. Is there a way to batch compress or batch shrink these like the photoshop 'save for web' feature?

July 06 2009 at 8:16 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
hansning

well, my lib went from 8.7 to 8.5, so it removed about 200mb, but that was using the shareware, and only using MD5. Not bad i suppose, since it couldn't scan all 5000 at once.

July 06 2009 at 8:07 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
5 replies to hansning's comment
BenY

I think the real issue here is: Why the **** hasn't Apple put this feature in iPhoto yet? It has facial recognition built in, puts your pictures on a ****ing map for you, etc. etc. But it can't clean up DUPLICATE PICTURES?
FAIL

July 06 2009 at 5:26 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
david

How do people manage to get so many duplicates?

July 06 2009 at 5:19 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Elektrozzo

My library is full of duplicates. After a data recovery of a broken hdd my library is full of same images in different sizes. From thumbnails to high res photos. I have no idea how to grind through all these data (around 14gb). Because of that they have all the same date and so on... Dont think that this program does work on my problem

July 06 2009 at 4:52 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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