Top 7 Best Duplicate Photo Finders for Mac in 2024: Delete Duplicate Photos in Minutes

Over time, duplicate photos can accumulate in the Photos app and folders on your Mac. They can take up storage space and lead to clutter and disorganization. The most efficient way to get rid of them is to use a duplicate photo finder or cleaner, a type of software designed to automatically identify duplicate photos and quickly remove duplicates.

This article provides a brief comparison of seven duplicate photo finders for Mac and talks about each app in detail.

 

A brief comparison

I tested about two dozens of duplicate photo finder apps for Mac. Seven of them stood out. These seven apps are talked about in this article. All of them can deal with duplicate photos, i.e. photos that are exactly identical (regardless of name). Some of them can also handle similar photos (aka near-duplicate photos), like photos that look the same but have different formats or resolutions or photos that look alike.

Some apps can look for duplicate photos in both the Photos app and folders, and some only work with folders or the Photos app. Some are only compatible with newer macOS versions, and some support both new and old versions.

Here’s a brief comparison of these apps to help you quickly filter the apps that don’t meet your needs. To help you find the best one among the apps that you think fit your needs, the next part of the article provides the detailed information of each app.

 

7 best duplicate photo finders for Mac

#1 Cisdem Duplicate Finder

Compatibility: macOS 10.11 El Capitan or later

Latest version: 6.5.0, released in December 2023

Best for: People who want to easily get rid of duplicate photos everywhere

Cisdem Duplicate Finder finds duplicate images, videos, audios, documents and all other duplicate files on Mac, external storage devices, and even cloud storage services. It’s easy to use for everyone.

This app can scan for duplicate photos in and across the Photos app and folders. In the test, it found all the duplicate images, including duplicate RAW images. (All the seven apps support RAW images.) You can turn on or off the app’s ability to identify similar photos and set the similarity level based on which the identification works.

It displays the found duplicate photos and similar ones separately under two different tabs in its results window. There are three view modes, allowing you to conveniently preview photos side by side and see photo information.

In each set of duplicate photos, the app automatically selects all but one photo for deletion. You can select or deselect photos by hand too. There are also selection rules to help you select. Similar photos are not automatically selected, but selection rules are available to help. The deleted duplicates are moved to the Recently Deleted album in the Photos app or the Trash.

Free Download macOS 10.11 or later

 

#2 Gemini 2

Compatibility: macOS 10.10 Yosemite or later

Latest version: 2.9.11, released in October 2023

Best for: People who’d like to prevent duplicate photos from accumulating

This beautifully designed app helps users preventing duplicate photos from accumulating in two ways. Let’s take a closer look.

Gemini 2 finds and deletes duplicate pictures that are already in folders and the Photos app. In addition, it finds similar photos and other duplicate files like duplicate videos and songs. Like Cisdem Duplicate Finder, it makes removing duplicate photos a snap (thanks to its Select Duplicates feature). But its image preview is not as handy as Cisdem Duplicate Finder’s.

Gemini 2’s Duplicates Monitor can detect newly created duplicate photos and other duplicate files in user-specified folders in real time. As soon as a duplicate photo appears in a monitored folder, you will be notified and presented with a button to delete the duplicate. You can turn on or off the monitor.

 

#3 PhotoSweeper

Compatibility: macOS 10.13 High Sierra or later

Latest version: 4.8.5, released in February 2024

Best for: Photographers or advanced users who need to find and remove duplicate photos

PhotoSweeper can be a good choice for photographers due to its support for Capture One and Adobe Lightroom Classic. It can also be a good choice for advanced users due to the many settings to play around with and customize. But some users may find this app confusing or overwhelming to use.

This duplicate photo finder for Mac supports folders, the Photos app and the two apps mentioned above. There are three sets of settings to compare photos, one to detect duplicate photos and the other two to detect similar ones. In version 4.8.5, a touch of AI slightly improves the accuracy in similar image detection. This app is indeed outstanding when it comes to finding similar photos and its customizability. But it missed a set of duplicate photos in the test.

It offers enough photo information and options when it comes to viewing duplicate photos and selecting duplicates for removal, which, if you are a photographer or know about photos, can help you deal with the found identical or similar photos in the most ideal way possible.

 

#4 Duplicate Photos Fixer Pro

Compatibility: macOS 10.8 Mountain Lion or later

Latest version: 4.10, released in September 2023

Best for: People who are looking for a simple alternative to PhotoSweeper

It’s simpler but less powerful than PhotoSweeper.

Like PhotoSweeper, Duplicate Photos Fixer Pro supports folders and the Photos app, has the ability to look for duplicate photos and similar ones, and displays duplicates and similar ones in together for users to view and handle.

But it doesn’t support Capture One and Lightroom, can only find certain similar photos, and doesn’t offer that much customizability, among other things. It’s less powerful overall, but can be simpler to use and less overwhelming.

There are two modes, one to find identical photos only and the other to find both identical and similar ones. The latter provides four settings for users to tweak. In the test, this app also missed a set of duplicate photos. It does a good job of identifying certain edited (like resized, flipped or cropped) versions of the same photo, but fails to find similar pictures taken by my phone.

 

#5 Disk Drill (free)

Compatibility: 10.15.7 Catalina or later

Latest version: 5.4.1426, released in December 2023

Best for: People who want to weed out duplicate photos in folders for free

As a matter of fact, Disk Drill is a data recovery app. But it offers a free tool called Find Duplicates.

This free duplicate file finder tool can find duplicate photos and other duplicate files in folders on Mac. In the test, it found all the duplicates, and the speed was excellent. However, note that it doesn’t work with the Photos app. If your Photos app is where the duplicates exist, then this free tool can’t help.

Despite being free, this tool can automatically select duplicates for elimination, making removing unwanted duplicates easy and quick. But although there’s a preview panel, it’s not very convenient to preview duplicate photos.

 

#6 dupeGuru (free)

Compatibility: macOS 10.12 Sierra or later

Latest version: 4.3.1, released in July 2022

Best for: People who are looking for a free duplicate photo finder for Mac with good customizability

dupeGuru is an open source app, which offers two modes to help users scan for duplicate photos.

The Picture mode is dedicated to handling images. It’s designed to find identical pictures and similar ones and allows you to set the similarity level. In the test, this mode was very slow and missed three sets of duplicate photos. According to the test, its ability to identify similar photos is poor.

The Standard mode can find all common types of duplicate files including duplicate photos. In the test, this mode was about three times faster than the Picture mode but was still way slower than the apps talked about above, and what’s important is that it found all the duplicates.

This app is less user-friendly than Disk Drill, but is way more customizable. It gives users enough control when it comes to the identification and elimination of duplicate photos.

 

#7 Apple Photos (free)

Compatibility: macOS 13 Ventura or later

Best for: People who use macOS Ventura or later and don’t have many duplicate photos

The Photos app (aka Apple Photos) in macOS 13 or 14 comes with a duplicate detection tool. This tool is included in macOS and free to use. But using it may require a little patience.

This tool can detect photos that are exactly the same or almost the same. It works automatically and in the background. You don’t need to enable or turn on it. You can’t force it to work neither. You just have to be patient and wait. The detection may take hours or even days if there are lots of items in your Photos app.

The removal of duplicates may also take patience. When the detection finishes, the Photos app displays the detected duplicates in the Duplicates album, which is in the sidebar on the left. In the album, you need to go through each set of duplicates to merge them or to delete the redundant ones. (If Duplicates doesn’t show up in the sidebar, check out these possible fixes.)

 

Tips

By now, you may have found the app that suits you best. Here are a few tips that you may find helpful, like tips on how to use such an app and how to avoid duplicate photos.

• If you are new to duplicate photo finder software and have no idea how it works, you can read the app’s user guide (like this one) first. The guide should be available on the app’s official website.
• If your Photos library or photos folder is very large, you can first quickly get yourself familiar with the app by using it to scan a small folder that contains duplicate pictures.
• Avoid looking for and deleting duplicates in system folders like “Library” and “Applications”.
• All the mentioned apps except Apple Photos provide two ways to remove duplicates: moving them to the Trash or deleting them permanently. Moving them to the Trash is recommended. This way, it’s possible to quickly restore deleted items when needed. (Once you are absolutely sure that you won’t need the deleted duplicates anymore, you can delete them in the Trash to free up storage space.)
• To avoid duplicate photos, you can use software to eliminate them regularly. You can be mindful when organizing photos. For example, if you want to move certain photos from one folder to another, use drag and drop instead of copying and pasting them.
• Stick to one way to import photos from your iPhone to the Photos app on your Mac. Either use My Photo Stream (or iCloud Photos) or a USB cable. This helps prevent importing duplicates.