How to Find and Delete Duplicate Photos in Windows 10: Free Methods Included

Rosa Reyes
May 23, 2022 Preview 19.2K Preview 0
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The duplicate photos on your Windows PC take up space and can make it harder for you to organize photos. They may even ruin your photo viewing experience. Don’t worry. This article will show you how to find and delete duplicate photos on Windows 10 PC in three ways, including two free ways.

 

4 facts to know about duplicate photos on Windows 10

Knowing these facts may help you handle duplicate photos in a more effective and safer way. If you want, you can skip this part.

  • Strictly speaking, duplicate photos are exactly identical photos (regardless of name), which are often caused by copying and pasting photos and importing or downloading the same photos more than once. In reality, photos that look the same but have different resolutions, file sizes or formats are also often called duplicate photos. In addition, there are near-duplicate photos (similar photos).
  • The existence of duplicate photos doesn’t hurt your computer. So it’s okay to leave them alone. But I recommend removing the duplicates if you want to keep your digital photo collection organized. Also note that too many duplicate photos can take up a lot of storage space, possibly causing your PC to slow down.
  • It’s safe to delete duplicate photos, but there is an exception. If there are duplicate images in system folders (such as Windows, Program Files and PerfLogs) on your Windows PC, don’t delete them. To get rid of duplicate photos on Windows 10, you can start with the folders where you usually store your photos, for example, the Pictures folder.
  • Windows 10 itself can’t find duplicate photos for users since it doesn’t have a built-in duplicate photo finder feature or app. To get the job done, you need some tricks or third party software.

Method 1. How to delete duplicate photos in Windows 10 for free in File Explorer

File Explorer (formerly Windows Explorer) is a file manager app included with Microsoft Windows operating systems. It doesn’t have a feature to handle duplicate photos. But there are tricks to make it relatively easy to erase duplicate photos on PC with File Explorer. The process can be time-consuming though.

1. On your Windows desktop or laptop, open File Explorer.

2. To find and get rid of duplicate photos in a folder, for example, the Pictures folder, open the folder.

a folder is opened in File Explorer

3. In the search box, enter “kind:” and choose Picture from the dropdown menu that appears. This will display all the photos in the folder, including the ones in subfolders (if any).

the dropdown menu provides the Picture option

4. Go to the View tab and click the Extra large icons or Large icons option. Also click the Details pane option.

5. Click the Sort by dropdown menu and choose Sort by Name or Size.

6. Go through the displayed photos and identify duplicates by comparing photo content and information.

7. Select multiple unwanted duplicate photos, right-click and select Delete.

duplicate photos are selected for deletion

In step 3, you can specify the image format if needed. For example, entering “kind:=picture type:jpg” will display all the JPG photos.

Method 2. How to remove duplicate photos in Microsoft Photos app in Windows 10 for free

Some Windows users choose to organize photos using the Microsoft Photos app (also known as Windows Photos or simply Photos). As the successor of Windows Photo Gallery, Microsoft Photos is a picture viewer and manager app included with Windows 8, 8.1, 10 and 11.

To find duplicates in Microsoft Photos, you first need to turn off the Linked duplicates option. The option is enabled by default to hide duplicate pictures if there are any, aiming to provide a good photo browsing experience. Note that the option doesn’t delete duplicates. To turn off this option, go to Settings in Microsoft Photos and set the Linked duplicates toggle to Off.

the Settings window showing that the Linked duplicates option is turned off

Now you can start finding and removing duplicate photos.

1. Open Microsoft Photos on your Windows 10 or 11 PC.

2. Choose the Collection tab.

3. Browse through your photos and look for duplicates by comparing photos.

4. Select multiple redundant duplicate photos and click the Delete icon in the upper-right part of the window.

select duplicate photos in Windows 10 Photos app to delete

5. In the Delete these files dialog box that appears, click Delete to remove the selected duplicate photos.

Method 3. How to find and delete duplicate photos in Windows 10 all at once automatically

Both Method 1 and Method 2 can be time-consuming and tedious especially if you have a large photo collection. The good news is you can automate the task!

Duplicate photo finder and remover software Cisdem Duplicate Finder can automatically scan the locations you specify for duplicate photos. The software detects duplicate photos by content (regardless of filename), so it can also find and remove duplicate photos with different names.

In a few minutes, your photo collection will become duplicate-free, easier to organize and nicer to view. In addition, lots of space will be freed up.

Cisdem Duplicate Finder main features:

  • Find duplicate images on Windows PC, external hard drive, SD card, etc.
  • Also find duplicate videos, songs, documents and any other duplicate files
  • Scan one or multiple folders/drives for duplicates at a time
  • Let you exclude specific files, subfolders and folders from scan
  • Provide 3 preview modes, including side-by-side preview
  • Automatically select duplicate photos for you to eliminate with a single click
  • Make it easy to customize the selection or select by hand
  • Offer 3 ways to remove duplicates: Move to Recycle Bin, Move to Folder and Remove Permanently
  • Easy to use
  • Highly customizable, letting you control what to find and how to delete
  • Compatible with Windows 10 and 11, 64-bit

1. Download and install Cisdem Duplicate Finder on your Windows computer. Open it.

Free Download

2. Dragging one or multiple folders into the software. Alternatively, add folders by clicking the plus icon.

add folders to scan for duplicate pictures

3. Click Scan.

4. When the scan is complete, the results window will display all the duplicate photos that have been found.

the results window all the duplicate photos files that have been found on Windows 10 PC

5. You can sort, preview and examine them as you like.

6. The software already automatically selects all duplicate photos for removal. If you want, you can choose a desired selection rule by clicking the icon the selection rules icon.

select duplicate photos to remove

7. Click Delete to delete all the selected duplicate photos in the Windows folder(s).

Below is the video tutorial (a video version of Method 3).

Note 1: In step 3, before you click Scan, you can go to Settings and do some customization if needed. You can exclude files and folders (such as system folders) from scan, select a desired Remove Method and more.

settings

Note 2: If you want to automatically find duplicate photos in Microsoft Photos, just add the source folder(s) of your Microsoft Photos to scan in step 2.

Tip: How to find and eliminate similar photos

Your photo collection may also have similar photos. For example, sometimes you take several pictures of the same scene. Sometimes you take pictures using burst mode on your camera or phone. Both will get you similar photos. Most of them can be redundant.

Luckily, Cisdem Duplicate Finder can also help you handle them. This duplicate photo finder software will find similar images and group them together for you to easily pick the best shots and select the undesirable ones for deletion.

the results window displaying groups of similar photos

You can set the similarity level in Settings if needed.

Conclusion

You can benefit a lot from regularly cleaning duplicate pictures on your computer. It’s possible to delete duplicate photos on Windows 10 for free via File Explorer or the Microsoft Photos app, which is applicable to small photo collections. To easily, quickly and reliably remove duplicates from any photo collection, small or large, you need professional software. Also, it’s recommended to avoid duplicate photos in the first place.

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Rosa Reyes
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Rosa has worked in Mac software industry for more than eight years. She believes that the purpose of software is to make life better and work more productively. In addition to writing, Rosa is also an avid runner.

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