How to Delete Duplicate Photos on PC? Windows & macOS

Highlight: Snapping countless photos becomes easy in this digital age, where everyone has a smart device. But while collecting these pictures, duplicates sneak into your PC, consuming the digital space. Hence, to tackle this clutter, follow this guide on “How to Delete Duplicate Photos on PC (Windows 10/11 & MacOS)?”.

Managing your images is crucial whether you are a pro vlogger or a casual clicker. In response to the above concern, we have designed this blog to help you regain storage without losing any wonderful memories. Find out why it is important to declutter your media file collection from the Windows operating system. In brief, we will go through the manual (Free) and Expert (Quick fix and Reliable) solutions.

Practical Reasons to Remove Duplicate Images from Computer – Win 11/10/8/7

Here are some of the practical grounds that one should know:

Free Up Storage Space – Similar photos unnecessarily clogged up your PC space, leading to storage shortages and hampering system performance.

Enhance System Speed – Cluttered photo libraries can have a significant impact on your system’s overall speed.

Easier Photo Management – Organizing and locating your favorite images gets easy by deleting identical media files from your photo collection.

Prevent Confusion – Providing shelter to duplicate pics can lead to confusion at the right times, making it challenging to find and share the shots.

Prevent Data Redundancy – Removing the like images can reduce data redundancy allowing you to efficiently use the storage resources and easier data management.

Method #1 – How to Delete Duplicate Photos on PC for Free via File Explorer

You can use this free method to easily find and delete identical images in Windows 11/10/8/7. However, this easily accessible solution may not be the perfect approach to solve the decluttering issue. Basically, File Explorer is a file manager i.e included in the Windows operating system.

Step 1. Open the folder where you want to find the duplicate pics.

Step 2. This step can be optional if your folder contains only the pictures. But if it has both images and other types of files or subfolders, this step becomes necessary. Follow the sub-steps to execute:

• In the top right corner of your File Explorer window, type “kind:” in the search box.
• Next, select “Picture” from the dropdown list.
• By doing this, the explorer will show only the pictures that are in the folder. Further, if you want to change the image format to JPG, type “kind:=picture type:jpg“.

Step 3. Sort Photos to Seamlessly find Identicals

• Navigate to the View tab → “Extra large icons” or “Large icons” → “Details pane” option.
• After that, align the images by Name, Size, or Date modified to detect the duplicates easily.

Step 4. Identify the Duplicate Snap

Manually go through the sorted photos to figure out similar visual content images by comparing them and also the details like names, file sizes, and resolutions.

Step 5. Delete the Duplicate Media Files

Using the Ctrl + Right-click button, you can select multiple unwanted identical pictures and press on Delete button to erase duplicates.

Bonus Tip: Use this handy trick to search for precise like photos in a folder by name. Likewise, go to the search box of the File Explorer, and type “~”*copy*“. This will show you all the files with “copy” names in them. Keep in mind, to cross-check the pictures before deleting them to avoid accidental loss.

Method #2 – How to Remove Duplicate Photos on PC through CMD (Free Fix)

The full form of CMD is Command Prompt. This is a sophisticated tool in Windows operating systems. Additionally, it helps the users to interact with the computer environment using text-based CMD commands.

Step 1. Press “Windows + R”, to open the Run dialog box. Next, type in “cmd” and click on “OK.”

Step 2. Use the “cd” and “dir” commands to navigate to the folder that contains your photos.

Step 3. After that, enter “dir /s /b *.name” in the command line. Here, replace the “.name” with the extension you want to find and eliminate identical photos. For instance, enter “dir /s /b *.jpg” to detect duplicate files with a .jpg file type. Then, hit Enter to begin the Scanning process in the disk.

Step 4. After the scanning session is completed, the results will be displayed on the screen.

Step 5. Henceforth, to eliminate the duplicate files, enter: del /s /f *.duplicate. This will erase all the duplicate files present in the searched directory and its subdirectories.

Also Read: Explore the benefits of using duplicate media finder utility.

Method #3 – How to Get Rid of Duplicate Photos on PC Using Microsoft Photos for free

Microsoft Photos is generally known as Photos. Mainly, it is a free photo viewer and manager that comes with Windows 8 and later versions. However, if you don’t have this application on your PC, you can download it from the Microsoft Store.

Most of us must have used this tool to view our photos but very less of us know that it can also find duplicate images in your folder. It also detects photos with similar content using its built-in feature.

Note: If you have an older version of Microsoft Photos or Photos Legacy, you might not have the duplicate detection feature available.

Step 1. Open and Add Folder in Microsoft Photos

This step is optional. From the navigation bar on the left, go to “Folders” → “Add a folder”. Do this to add the folder where you want to eliminate the duplicates. Also, you can add multiple files as per your need.

Step 2. Choose the Identical files

In particular, duplicate detection occurs automatically in the wizard’s background. When a duplicate is traced by the application, a Duplicate icon will be visible in the top left corner of the thumbnail. Next, to detect all the identical pictures, go to “All Photos” in the navigation bar. After that, seek for the images with the Duplicate icon and Select them.

However, for the photos that are not exactly similar, you have to manually find them yourself. For each set, choose the redundant version(s).

Step 3. Erase Identical Photos

At last, click the Trash icon in the top right corner of the Photos app to remove the selected items. Click on “Delete” to move the duplicate photos to the Recycle Bin.

Shortcomings in the Free Solutions to Erase Duplicate Photos

Let’s see the answer in suitable one-liner points:

• Time-Consuming
• Human Error
• Inefficiency for Large Collections
• Limited Accuracy
• Subjective Decision-Making
• No Automation
• Risk of Data Loss
• Limited Sorting and Filtering
• No Handling of Similar Images
• No Deduplication Suggestions

Method #4 – How to Find and Delete Duplicate Photos on PC Using A Quick Fix

No doubt that the manual or free approach is the best but the process is not reliable and could end up deleting the original files. Thus, going for a SysTools duplicate file finder tool can be a standout option to detect and erase identical images. Also, using this cutting-edge tech, you can easily arrange disorderly and disarrayed files. Coming to the rich feature of this utility, it incorporates a robust scanning engine, supports multiple file types, recursive scanning mode, and many more.

Follow the steps to find and delete duplicate media files instantly:

Step 1. Download and launch the above software on your machine.

Step 2. Next, tap on the Add Folder tab to choose the folder.

Step 3. In the Scan Configuration section, pick the parameters as per your needs. Then, hit on Continue.

Step 4. To remove the duplicate images, click on the Delete option.

Step 5. Once the delete action is completed under the Action it will show Deleted.

Solution #1: How to Delete Duplicate Photos on Mac OS Catalina For Free Using Photos App?

The built-in feature of this Photos App is to find the duplicate images present in the Macbook Air. Especially, when you import new pictures into the folder. Besides this, if identical replicas are already present in your Photo Library, you can use this utility to manually delete them.

• Launch the Photos App on your Mac OS. To find it simply use Spotlight (Cmd + Space) and type “Photos”.
• Navigate to File menu → New Smart Album.
• In the Smart Album dialog box, set the criteria to identify the duplicates. For instance: Photos is in the last 12 months, Camera Model is [your camera model], etc. Apart from this, you can add more criteria by clicking on the “+” icon.
• Now, review the photos and look for duplicates.
• Next, pick the photo(s) you want to delete.
• Right-click and hit on “Delete [numeric value]Photos.”
• At last, to permanently remove the identical images, go to the “Recently Deleted” tab on the left sidebar. Then, select all and tap on “Delete [numeric value]Items.”

Latest Tech Update:

If you are using macOS Ventura and Sonoma, Duplicate Photos deletion can be easier. Apple introduced a Duplicates feature that allows you to find and delete similar photos and videos from your media library. Here, the Duplicate pictures and clips will be automatically detected by the system. However, if you don’t find any, be patient as the photo scrutinization is underway and could take some time depending on your media file collection. Follow the steps below on how to get rid of duplicate images in the Photos app on macOS:

• Click on the Duplicates tab in the sidebar.
• Next, choose the identical photos and videos you desire to Merge.
• Hit on the Merge [numeric value]Items button.

Solution #2: How to Remove Multiple Duplicate Pictures on Mac OS Big Sur with New Smart Folder?

This section is also helpful in finding and deleting duplicate clicks on your Mac. All you need to have a New Smart Folder option. Follow the points to eliminate duplicate photos using Finder:

• In the top menu in your window, go to “File” → “New Smart Folder.”
• Next, tap on the “+” icon in the top right corner to add search criteria.
• To set the first criterion, navigate to the 1st dropdown menu “Kind” → Next dropdown “Image.”
• In addition, you can add more criteria such as “Date Created”, “Date Modified”, etc. click on the “+” button again.
• Now, arrange the pictures by name in the Smart Folder window. Navigate to the “+” icon once more Select “Name” from 1st dropdown and “is.” in the 2nd. Here, leave the text field black adjacent to “is”.
• Finally, manually identify the images with similar names or thumbnails. Then, right-click on them and tap on “Move to Trash” or press ‘Cmd + Delete’.

Remember that the above methods rely on the filenames and metadata to identify residing duplicates, so have a backup before performing deletion. In short, the process is not trustworthy enough to catch all the duplicate pictures.

Also Read: Unique Paths on how to delete duplicate videos on Mac OS.

Solution #3: How to Find and Remove Duplicate Photos on Mac OS Monterey by Using Terminal?

We are providing you the following script to use in Mac Terminal to automatically detect and remove duplicate pictures from the photo library. Keep in mind that the scanning mechanism is based on MD5 checksums or hash values. So, be cautious while proceeding as this process is highly irreversible. Ensure to have a backup of the pics. Let’s begin.

#!/bin/bash

# Set the path to your photos folder

photos_folder=”/path/to/your/photos”

# Change to the photos folder

cd “$photos_folder”

# Find and delete duplicate files

find . -type f -exec md5sum {} + | sort | uniq -w32 –all-repeated=separate | while read -r line; do

checksum=$(echo “$line” | cut -c 1-32)

files=($(echo “$line” | cut -c 35- | tr ‘\n’ ‘ ‘))

num_files=${#files[@]}

for (( i=1; i<num_files; i++ )); do

file=”${files[i]}”

echo “Deleting duplicate: $file”

rm “$file”

done

done

echo “Duplicate deletion complete.”

Make sure to replace the folder path ‘/path/to/your/photos’ with the original path of your pictures library. Next, don’t forget the save the above script to a file with .sh format. E.g.  ‘delete_duplicates.sh’. Then, run the following command:

chmod +x delete_duplicates.sh

Drawbacks in the Manual/Free Solutions to Mac Remove Duplicate Images

Here are some of the shortcomings of the most used manual methods:

• Manually identifying and cleaning duplicate photos on Mac can be time-consuming, labor-intensive, and hectic at times.
• Sometimes if not managed carefully, could delete non-duplicate images, causing data loss.
• Less compatible with large photo libraries.
• Manual techniques may overlook subtle variations in the images.
• Requires some technical skills to operate the code properly.
• Most of the manual processes lack automation, resulting in the unnecessary draining of energy and time.

Solution #4: How to Delete Duplicate Photos on macOS? – An Expert Tech

The above strategies could be useful for small picture collections but cannot be efficient for a large set of images. As a result, we suggest you go with the reliable and professional approach to remove multiple duplicate photos on macOS (Macintosh Operating System). The automated solution is SysTools Duplicates Finder for Mac. Additionally, this utility is curated by experts to find and delete pilled-up redundant pictures on Mac Catalina, Monterey, Big Sur, and other latest versions. Listed below are a few of the application attributes.

• Proficient and Sophisticated Scanning Engine
• Recursive (In-depth) Scanning Option
• Supports multiple file Extensions such as CR2, NEF, ORF, RAF, SR2, MRW, DCR, PG/JPEG, TIFF/TIF, ICO, PS, PNG, BMP, GIF, PSD, CRW, WMF, DNG, ERF, RAW, SWF, SVG, PAT and X3F etc.
• Enables to Move or Delete Duplicate Photos
• Detects Visually Like Pictures
• You can Preview the Photos before Deleting
• Compatible with Running on Any External Storage Device like Pendrive, MicroSD, etc.

Simple Steps to Find and Delete Identical Images on macOS

Step 1. Download and Install this automated application on your system.

Step 2. Click on the Add Folder button to open the folder containing duplicate photos.

Step 3. Next, pick the appropriate scanning parameter and choose the file type from the “Select from file extension in folder” option as per your requirement. Then, tap on Continue.

Step 4. After that, hit on the Delete tab to remove the redundant picture files.

Step 5. You will notice that under the Action column, the message is changed to Deleted.

Manual Vs. Professional Way – Which is better? to Delete Duplicate Photos

Every approach has its pros and cons associated with it. To analyze the approaches better, let’s observe the comparison table for a clear outline.

Aspect	Manual/Free Solution	Tool-Oriented Method
Time Efficiency	Time-consuming, especially for large collections	Rapid and automated, suitable for extensive libraries
Accuracy	Prone to human error, may miss subtle differences	High accuracy, automated algorithms minimize errors
Scalability	Inefficient for large collections	Efficient, scalable for various library sizes
Automation	Manual, repetitive process	Automated, reduces user intervention
Risk of Data Loss	Higher risk due to human errors	Lower risk, advanced tools offer safety features
Consistency	Subjective decision-making, inconsistent	Consistent, automated processes ensure uniform results
Handling Similar Images	Limited ability to identify subtle differences	Robust algorithms can detect even similar images
Sorting/Filtering Options	Basic or limited options	Advanced sorting and filtering capabilities
Deduplication Suggestions	Lacks suggestions for duplicate sets	Provides suggestions, streamlining decision-making
Ease of Use	Requires manual effort and attention	User-friendly interfaces, less user effort
Frequency of Maintenance	Frequent manual effort for ongoing management	Less frequent maintenance due to automation
Cost	Generally free, but may have hidden costs	Varies, but some tools may require a purchase

Final Takeaway

In this article, we have shed light on answering the question of “How to delete duplicate photos on PC – Windows & macOS?” We also gained some insights related to various manual solutions to eliminate identical pictures. Next, we come to know where the manual solutions fail. Resulting to it, found a way to counteract the limitations of the free approach i.e. through the professional (Quick fix) method. Now, after going through the blog you decide to choose the precise way to address the decluttering problem.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1. How can I be sure I’m deleting the right photos?

Ans. Before deleting the photos make sure to use the preview feature of the professional utility. On the other hand, meticulously review each set of duplicates keeping the best versions of images in the collection.

Q2. Can I recover deleted duplicate photos if I make a mistake?

Ans. Yes, if you have sent the photos to Recycle Bin by deletion, you can easily recover them from there. But, if you have Shift+Delete the pictures, you must require some advanced recovery tools to retrieve the images.

Q3. Can I build a finder that can detect and remove duplicate photos?

Ans. Yes, you can create a finder that can find and delete duplicate images present on your system using image processing libraries like OpenCV or PIL in Python. Using these libraries, you can compare and segregate them on the basis of visual similarity or metadata. Also, you can automate the process to repeat the same step again and again.

Q4. Is filename_copy.format photos are also duplicates of the original photo? If yes, then how do you select and delete those photos?

Ans. Yes, photos that are named “filename_copy.format” are likely to be duplicates. Filtering out them manually can be challenging and could end up even by deleting the original image. So, it is suggested to use the above-advanced software to detect the _copy pictures. To achieve this, In the “Find By” section of Scan Configuration of the tool –> Check the “Files with same content” list.

Q5. What are the reasons why filename_copy.format copies are created?

Ans. The associated reasons why _copy.filetype copies are generated are:

• To save different versions of a file without overwriting the original.
• To create a backup copy before making changes.
• To share a specific version while retaining the original.
• Resulting from manual copying or software processes.
• Reusing a file template for new projects.
• Testing changes on a copy without affecting the original file.