Tips on large number of duplicates

[Scott C]

For a variety of reasons we have about 10,000 duplicate photos (10% of our entire collection). I can select one of the two photo 10,000 times in the duplicate finder, but hoping someone has a tip on how to make this easier. Thanks!

[Greyfox]

For a variety of reasons we have about 10,000 duplicate photos (10% of our entire collection). I can select one of the two photo 10,000 times in the duplicate finder, but hoping someone has a tip on how to make this easier. Thanks!

So what is it you actually want to do. Remove all of the duplicates, or just some, and if just some, on what basis is "keep" or "delete" going to be made. Are there cases where you will actually want to retain some duplication?.
.

[Scott C]

Thanks for the reply and I should have been more clear. The program is telling me they are exact duplicates (I think!) and after going through quite a few, it does look like they are exact duplicates with slightly different file names. I would like to delete one of those two and I don't strongly prefer which. I do appreciate there are other "duplicates"like a mildly edited picture and from what I can tell, it is not identifying those. I have manually checked several thousand and not found any "not actually a duplicate"cases, but of course there are still 10K left, so maybe there are a few buried in there.

Anyway, short answer - I want to get rid of all the exact duplicates which are in our phot folders.

Thanks for any suggestions! BTW, super impressed with how many answers I have read of yours on the forum!

Scott

[Greyfox]

Scott C

ACDSee's duplicates finder, along with a number of other duplicate finders requires you to make a manual selection (tick box) as to which of the duplicates is to be deleted. AFAIK there are no batch short cuts to this, probably to minimise accidental loss of images, but that makes selection of those to be deleted manual...

There is a 3rd party utility called "Duplicate photos Fixer Pro" https://www.duplicatephotosfixer.com/ that advertises Auto selection of duplicates. As I understand it, it can be set to mark all duplicates except one of each set found, which would potentially speed up the process. I haven't used this product, so caveat emptor. It is also relatively expensive (showing as normal price $AUS 89.95 but currently on special at $49.95).

An alternative utility that advertises some from of Auto delete is Duplicate File Fixer https://www.duplicatefilesfixer.com/. Again I haven't used it and it isn't free.
It appear to have some form of free trial with limitation on deletions.

[Scott C]

Thanks and that was what I was afraid of. Duplicate File Fixer is only $20 (I found that before I posted) but it worries me. So cheap and potentially so devastating. Looks like I will just do a manual purge every so often (I an do a few hundred at a time before I give out).

[Greyfox]

Thanks and that was what I was afraid of. Duplicate File Fixer is only $20 (I found that before I posted) but it worries me. So cheap and potentially so devastating. Looks like I will just do a manual purge every so often (I an do a few hundred at a time before I give out).

That's the safest way.

[Colorworks]

I find the layout of the duplicate finder results window in ACDSee very hard to work with. It doesn't show the images for one thing and it is so hard to see.

However if you select 2 or more images and then right click I think - ACDSee and I have had a falling out today and aren't talking - you can choose compare images and then choose which one to delete by looking at the dates and pixels of each image.

Another option I have found useful is to use the photos app because it tells the original date of the images and the most original probably has the most pixels if you're dealing with jpg's.

But here is another Dupe's Finder I found and it works for both Windows and Mac and is $19.99. I haven't tried it yet though.

I did have a nice one on my Mac.

I'd like to know what you find that works because I'm in the same situation. You're doing well if you can do 100 at a time.

[popman]

I am using this free utility. https://dupdetector.informer.com/3.3/
You can choose the degree of exact matches and do deletion from manual, semi-automated and automated.

[Scott C]

Thanks, I will take a look at it.

Edited: Don't bother following the link - it takes you to shopping sites when you press the download link.

[popman]

Sorry for this Scott. It was the first Link I got. Just search for DupDetector. There are various alternative Download sites.
e.g: https://www.softpedia.com/get/System...Detector.shtml

Also: the ink provided in my previous post took me to the download location as intended, not to a shopping site! ...... I could dl DupDetector with no problem.

[Greyfox]

Scott C
popman

Just remember that if you use a 3rd party utility to remove duplicates, you will create orphan entries in the ACDSee database.

[Scott C]

popman
Sorry about that, not sure what happened but the second link worked for me and the program worked well. Interestingly it found duplicates Photo Studio did not. I liked the interface as well (can see both pictures and details simultaneously, then decide which to delete). It did NOT find near duplicates (photos I had "developed") until I set the sensitivity at 90% and then only found some. At 90% it did have one mis-identified duplicate (but it was a skiing scene, so the majority of the picture was snow white). Thanks again, nice program.

Greyfox
I would have agreed with you, but I opened up Photo Studio, found a folder with a few duplicates. Ran the DupFinder program (with Photo Studio running still) and when I toldthe program to delete a photo, it disappeared from Photo Studio about 1 second later. When I looked, no orphan files were found (at the dashboard). Seems too good to be true!

[Greyfox]

[USER="22057"]
I would have agreed with you, but I opened up Photo Studio, found a folder with a few duplicates. Ran the DupFinder program (with Photo Studio running still) and when I toldthe program to delete a photo, it disappeared from Photo Studio about 1 second later. When I looked, no orphan files were found (at the dashboard). Seems too good to be true!

My experience is that the Dashboard counts are not updated immediately. I seem to recall that there may be some tie to the Indexer, but maybe other actions as well.
Perhaps keep and eye on the Dashboard counts and see whether they change over time. If the files you have deleted with a 3rd party utility were in the ACDSee database, then the entries will still exist, and will now be orphaned.

[popman]

I suggest running a DB optimization anyhow from time to time.
Duplicate finder within Photo Studio is only good for 100% exact matches, so an external program is neccessary to find the close matches.

Scott C : glad you liked it and I could help.

[Scott C]

Greyfox as usual, you were wise in the ways of Photo Studio. Today I have an orphan count which pretty much matches how many I deleted. Any harm in fixing that with database optimization after purging some duplicates with a 3rd party program?