How to Remove Duplicates in iPhoto 2022: A Guide that Works

iPhoto was developed by Apple for Mac as a photo management app. Although it has been discontinued and replaced by Photos (also known as Apple Photos) since 2015, there are still Google searches like “iPhoto remove duplicates 2022” and “iPhoto remove duplicates 2021”. Some people are still looking for a way or the best duplicate photo finder to delete duplicate photos in iPhoto.

This article will show you how to find duplicate photos in iPhoto quickly and mass remove them easily.

3 facts to know about iPhoto

Below are important facts to know about iPhoto. They can help you better understand the process of finding and deleting the duplicate photos in it.

• When you import photos into iPhotos on your Mac, the photos are stored in the iPhotos library (with the extension .photoslibrary) instead of the iPhotos app. The library is in the Pictures folder by default.
• iPhoto was discontinued in 2015 with the release of OS X Yosemite 10.10.3. macOS 10.14 Mojave is the last version of macOS to run the iPhoto app.
• If your Mac is running macOS 10.15 Catalina or later, it won’t be possible to use the iPhoto app, but your iPhoto library and the photos in it won’t be affected. You can open the library in the Photos app, the successor of iPhoto.

 Cisdem Duplicate Finder

The Best iPhoto Duplicate Remover

• Find duplicate photos, videos, audios and all other duplicate files
• Also identify similar images, letting you set the similarity level
• Find and delete duplicate files on Mac, external hard drive, SD card, etc.
• Find and remove duplicates from iPhoto, Photo, iTunes and Music
• Display the found duplicate photos for you to preview side by side
• Automatically select duplicates for you to mass delete with a click
• Also offer selection rules for you to customize the selection
• Easy and safe to use
• Customizable, letting you take control
• Compatible with macOS 10.11 or later, including macOS Ventura
• Also available for Windows PC

Free Download   Free Download

How to delete duplicates in iPhoto automatically

You can quickly find and remove iPhoto duplicates with Cisdem Duplicate Finder, the best duplicate photo finder for Mac.

1. Quit the Photos app on your Mac if it’s open.

2. Press and hold the Option key and open Photos.

3. In the Choose Library dialog that appears, select your iPhoto library and then click Choose Library. If you don’t see the iPhoto library, click Other Library to manually add it.

4. Click Get Started and wait for Photos to finish preparing the library.

5. Open Finder and go to the Pictures folder. There you will find a new Photos library, and the content in your iPhoto library has been migrated to it. Note: From now on, please consider this new library your iPhoto library.

6. Download and install Cisdem Duplicate Finder. Open it.

Free Download

7. Drag your iPhoto library (the new one) into it. Click Scan.

8. Once the scan is done, the scan results window will display all the iPhoto duplicate photos that have been found for you to sort, preview and view.

9. Cisdem Duplicate Finder has automatically selected duplicates for you to mass delete with one click. Or, you can choose a desired selection rule or select by hand.

10. Click Delete in the bottom right corner to remove all the selected duplicates at once.

11. Confirm the deletion.

Now the unwanted iPhoto duplicate photos are deleted and moved to the Recently Deleted album in the Photos app. To permanently eliminate them right away, go to Recently Deleted and click Delete All.

Note: If your Mac is running macOS 10.14 Mojave or earlier, then the last step (step 11) will be different. Please read the user guide for details.

Tips

• After you click Delete, if a dialog (like the one shown in the screenshot below) appears, please do what the dialog says and then click Yes It’s done.
• When you open the original iPhoto library with the Photos app (as in steps 3 and 4), the extension of the original library will be automatically changed from .photolibrary to .migratedphotolibrary. If you want, you can keep iPhoto Library.migratedphotolibrary as a backup of your iPhoto photos.
• You can follow a similar process to delete duplicate photos on Mac Photos app.
• In addition to duplicate photos (photos that are exactly the same, regardless of filename), this app can also scan iPhoto for visually identical photos in different sizes and visually similar photos. They will be grouped for you to easily identify the best shots and select the unwanted ones for removal. Before a scan, you can set the similarity level in Preferences.

This iPhoto duplicate remover works based on the mechanism of iPhoto and Photos. It identifies and deletes duplicates from within Photos, just like a human would do, which ensures utmost safety. Compared to the manual method, it can provide high accuracy, speed and efficiency.

How to remove iPhoto duplicates manually

If there aren’t many photos in your iPhoto library, you can get rid of them by hand.

1. Use Photos app to open the iPhoto library.
2. Go to the Photos tab.
3. This step is optional. Control-click a photo and select Get Info. The information provided in the Info window can help you know if two duplicate photos are exactly the same or different in image quality.
4. Hold and press the Command key ⌘ and select the unwanted duplicate copies.
5. Perform a control-click and choose Delete ... Photos.
6. Click Delete.
7. Go to Recently Deleted and click Delete All. Alternatively, you can leave them there. They will be automatically eliminated after a month.

Why does iPhoto duplicate photos when importing?

iPhoto duplicate photos when importing to protect your digital photo collection. Go to File > Preferences > Advanced, and you can find the Importing option Copy items to the iPhoto Library. It is also available in Photos. The option is enabled by default.

If this option is enabled, when you drag photos from somewhere on your Mac, say, the desktop, into iPhoto, iPhoto will copy the photos into the library. In other words, it duplicates them. Now you actually have two copies of each imported photo.

To prevent iPhoto from duplicating photos, you can unselect the checkbox before Copy items to the iPhoto Library. However, it is NOT recommended. If you set iPhoto not to store a copy of the photo it imports and you accidentally delete the original copy, when you try to view the photo in iPhoto, a message will pop up telling you that it can’t find the file.

Conclusion

This article talks about two methods on how to delete iPhoto duplicates in a safe, easy manner. Both of them allow you to remove duplicates by moving them to the Recently Deleted album. This way, you can easily restore them if needed. Duplicate photos can occur during importing photos, merging libraries, etc. Regardless of the cause, you can free up room on Mac by removing duplicate photos including iPhoto duplicates on a regular basis.