November 22, 2022
12.9K
If you shoot a lot with your camera or smartphone and store the photos on your computer, chances are high that lots of duplicate photos have accumulated on your computer over years. Deleting duplicates can help better organize photos and free up space. Free duplicate photo finder apps are available and supposed to help users get rid of duplicate photos for free.
Are free duplicate photo finders really free? Do they do a good job of finding and removing duplicate photos? Please read on.
Cisdem Duplicate Finder
Free Download 
Free Download
Many apps claim to detect and eliminate duplicate photos on computer at no cost to users. As a matter of fact, some of them don’t. Users have to pay to perform the deletion, or they are only allowed to delete a very limited number of the found duplicates for free. A totally free one should let users find and delete duplicates without limit.
The good news is that there are a few free full version duplicate image finder and remover apps. All features are free. There is no limit.
But are they any good? Let’s find out.
Provided by: 508 Software
Compatibility: 10.15.7 or later
Latest version: 5.0.1043, released in November 2022
Disk Drill is actually a data recovery app. It offers a few extra tools. Thanks to the extra tool called Find Duplicates, it can help you find duplicate photos and some other duplicate files. Some people recommend it as the best free duplicate photo finder for Mac.
This free app won’t let you down if you want to search folders for duplicate photos. But note that the search can be slow with a large folder. It will display the found duplicate pictures for you to view. But the preview feature, which is important to duplicate photo finder software, is somewhat hidden and not handy.
For a Mac user, the Photos app is where duplicate photos usually reside. If you want to find duplicates in the Photos app, Disk Drill can’t help because it doesn’t support this app. You need a more powerful piece of software to reliably remove duplicates from Photos.
Provided by: www.duplicate-finder.com
Compatibility: Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, 2003, XP, 2000
Latest version: 1.2, released in April 2021
Awesome Duplicate Photo Finder is indeed an awesome app to search for photo duplicates and image duplicates. It’s easy to use, and the performance is not bad.
In addition to photos that are exactly identical (regardless of name), it identifies certain similar photos, such as the slightly edited versions of the same photo, helping you easily locate the best version to keep.
The side-by-side preview feature enables you to conveniently preview and compare the sets of duplicate photos found on your computer, which can be helpful.
However, it’s not that efficient when it comes to removing duplicate photos. You have to manually delete the redundant duplicate(s) in each set one by one. It can take quite a while if there are a lot of photos. You have to be patient. If you want to mass remove duplicate photos, you can try a different app.
Provided by: ManyProg
Compatibility: Windows 10, 8, 7, XP
Latest version: 2.4.1, released in April 2022
If you are looking for a duplicate photo finder with enough ease of use and configurability, you may want to check out Duplicate Image Remover Free. But note that this app also doesn’t provide a way to mass delete duplicates.
It offers three comparison types. The Strong Duplicate type is recommended because it searches for duplicate images by comparing content. The Similar Images type searches for images that are similar. The File Properties type compare images by name only, which is not recommended.
There are a number of options to configure the search. For example, you can exclude folders (such as system folders) and files (such as small files) from the search.
Once the search is complete, you can view and preview the duplicate photos found on your PC. But the preview is too small to view properly.
In each set of duplicate photos, you need to manually select the unwanted duplicate(s) for deletion, which can be time-consuming. There is a feature called Select automatically, which is actually not usable.
Provided by: Nektony
Compatibility: macOS 10.11 or later
Latest version: 7.0.3, released in November 2022
Duplicate File Finder is also called Duplicate File Finder Remover. The ability to find exactly identical photos and similar photos makes it a good duplicate photo finder.
There are four modes. Both the Find Duplicate mode and the Duplicate Pictures mode can scan for duplicate images in folders and the Photos app. But the scan is slow. If your photo library has over 5 thousands items, the scan will take a long time.
The results window will display the found duplicate photos, allowing you to preview photos and see photo information like name, size and creation date.
In each set of duplicate photos, the Auto Select feature will select all but one photo for removal. If you want more reliability, you can go through each set and manually select duplicates to eliminate.
Provided by: Guillaume FOUET (aka Ozone)
Compatibility: Windows 10, 7, Vista, XP, 2003 and 2000
Latest version: 1.31, released in February 2013
VisiPics can help you find duplicate images and certain similar images on your Windows PC. To set the app to only scan for duplicates, you need to set the Filter slider to Strict.
The scan results will be displayed with thumbnails. You can preview them with the built-in preview feature. You can go through the results and select the unwanted duplicates for deletion. Also, there is an Auto Select feature. But don’t rely much on the feature when you are handling both duplicate pictures and similar ones.
This duplicate picture finder free app works well on 32-bit of Windows operating systems. You can also run it on 64-bit versions of Windows, but there may be problems.
Provided by: Systweak Software
Compatibility: macOS 10.7 or later
Latest version: 2.8, released in September 2022
Dedicated to handling images, this free duplicate photo finder can scan folders, the Photos app, or a bunch of photos for duplicate photos.
In the test, I used Photos Duplicate Cleaner and Duplicate File Finder to scan the same folder for duplicate photos. Photos Duplicate Cleaner was three times slower. It’s not a good choice if you are after efficiency.
The results window will display the detected duplicate photos. You can preview them side by side and see image metadata.
This app provides an Auto Mark feature to automatically select duplicates for elimination, helping save time when there are tons of duplicates to get rid of.
Provided by: Piriform Software Ltd
Compatibility: Windows 11, Windows 10, 8.1, 7 or later; macOS 10.10 or later
Latest version for Windows: 6.06.10144, released in November 2022
Latest version for Mac: 2.07.166, released in November 2022
Available for both Windows PC and Mac, CCleaner has two editions: Free and Professional. Both editions offer a Duplicate Finder tool. Therefore, The free edition of CCleaner can be used as a free duplicate photo finder.
CCleaner can find duplicate copies of images, videos, audios and most other files. You can set it to identify duplicate photos by content or name or size.
CCleaner excludes subfolders by default when it searches for duplicates in folders. If you want to find as many duplicate photos as possible, you need to click Include > Edit and then select the Include files and subfolders option.
This app lists the found duplicate photos for you to view, displaying photo information such as name, size and location. But there is no built-in preview feature. To view a photo, you need to open it in File Explorer, which is not that convenient.
Provided by: Apple
Compatibility: macOS 13; iOS 16
The Photos app in macOS 13 can find duplicate photos as long as they are in the Photos library.
This app has a built-in duplicate photo detector, which finds exact duplicates, identical photos in different resolutions or formats, and very similar photos. This detector works automatically in the background. If you are looking for a Mac Photos duplicate finder, it can be a choice. The same duplicate photo detector is available on iPhone.
This Mac Photos duplicate finder displays the detected duplicate photos in an album called Duplicates. A set of photos appear in this album can be a set of exact duplicates or similar photos. Examine them to make sure you know what they really are before you delete or merge them.
If they are a set of exact duplicate photos, deleting either one will be okay. If they are not exactly the same, decide which one(s) to keep or delete before you take action. You will need to handle the sets of duplicate photos one by one, which can take time.
Provided by: WinZip Computing LLC
Compatibility: macOS 10.7 or later
Latest version: 1.0.0, released on 12 Apr 2016
This freeware app can scan both folders and Photos Library for duplicates. However, it may damage your Photos library, just like Araxis Find Duplicate Files would do.
The app is capable of identifying most of the duplicate photos in a folder on your Mac. The duplicates will be listed in the results window in groups. You have to manually select the unwanted duplicates one by one and then click the Remove Selected button to get rid of them. There is no way to do it automatically.
There aren’t many truly free duplicate photo finders available for MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, Windows PC, etc. I have tested the ones that I can get my hands on.
As you can see, they may have some features that you expect from duplicate photo finder software, such as automatically identifying duplicates. But they are not good at it.
Some of the free duplicate photo finders may crash, some of them are pretty slow, and some doesn’t allow you to delete duplicates in bulk. You may spend much time trying these apps but end up still having the duplicate photos on your hard drive.
What’s more, for Mac users, all the free apps can’t deal with the Photos app. To make matters worse, they may damage your Photos library.
Professional duplicate photo finder software Cisdem Duplicate Finder may be what you are looking for.
Provided by: Cisdem
Compatibility: Windows 10 and Windows 11; macOS 10.11 or later
Latest version: 2.9.1, released in November 2022
Unlike the tested freeware, it is powerful and versatile.
1. Download this duplicate photo finder’s free trial and install it.
2. Click the plus icon and add the folder(s) from which you want to find duplicate pictures. Or, add folders by dragging and dropping.
3. Click Scan.
4. When the scan is done, the scan results window will appear. The Images tab display all the found duplicate photos for you to preview and sort. The Similar Images tab displays the found similar photos.
5. This app has automatically and smartly selected all duplicates for you to quickly get rid of. If you want, you can choose a desired selection rule.
6. Click Delete to remove the selected duplicate photos.
With the free trial, you can perform all the steps except deletion for free. If satisfied with the app, you can upgrade to the full version. Its performance won’t let you down. It can help you quickly and safely free up lots of space and is worth investing.
A free duplicate photo finder can help you declutter your photos for free. However, freeware can’t deal with a large number of photos, which makes them less useful. Also, Mac users need to be careful with free apps that may damage the Photos library.
Your photos are precious to you. You can’t afford to lose or corrupt them. To quickly and safely delete duplicate photos on your computer, it’s recommended to use professional software.
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.
Bernhard Suchy
Thank you for your post! The last software works very well on my mac. The scan found over 800 duplicate photos on my computer! And very fast! I don't need to worry about my mac running out of memory anymore. Especially that it has built in preview feature then i can see detail of the duplicates.