I remember my parents saying, “Kim, stop wasting the film.” Oh yes, the days of putting film in a camera, taking up to 36 pictures and then waiting for it to get developed to see if any shots were good. Those days are long gone.
Today, the average American takes around 20 photos every single day. And I bet many of those are three shots of the same thing. So, how do we tackle the deluge of doubles?
This is a perfect weekend project. Whether you’re a Windows aficionado, an Apple enthusiast, an Android buff or a Google Photos pro, there are steps and tools to help streamline your collection. Let’s dive in.
Cleaning up your photo libraries
For Windows:
- Get the right tool: Windows doesn’t have a built-in duplicate finder, so you’ll need to download a third-party app like Duplicate Cleaner.
- Scan your library: After installing the app, scan your photo library. The software will review files by size, content and similarity, catching those pesky near-duplicates.
- Review and delete: The app will present you with a list of duplicates. Review these to make sure no unique photos are incorrectly marked and then delete any copies to free up storage.
For Apple:
Lucky you! The Photos app on your iPhone, iPad, iMac or MacBook has a built-in “duplicate photos” tool. It’s so easy to use. Here’s how:
- Open the Photos app and select Albums.
- Scroll down and choose Duplicates. (I just looked at mine and had 2,933 duplicate photos and 49 videos!)
- There, you can hit Select > Select all and then tap the Trash icon to delete them.
- Or select Merge, which will combine all the dups into one great shot.
For Android:
Rather than manually locating and deleting everything you don’t need, open the Files by Google app, then select Clean. If you don’t have the app, head to the Google Play Store and download it for free.
Next, tap Confirm and free up > See junk files and select what you want to clear. When ready, tap Clear > Clear. That’s all it takes to remove screenshots, memes, duplicates and other junk hiding among the important photos.
For Google Photos:
There isn’t a built-in tool to find duplicates in Google Photos. You can clean things up manually:
- Log in to Google Photos.
- Click on Photos in the left panel.
- Find the duplicates, select photos that you don’t need, and click on the Delete option.
That could take forever if you have thousands of duplicates. A third-party app like Duplicate Photos Fixer Pro would be a quicker solution.
One more thing: We were out to dinner with our friends Jim and Janie. Barry wanted to show Jim pictures of our boat. He was scrolling through his photo library. I leaned over and said, “Type boat in the search bar.” He did, and bam, there was the one he wanted. Jim said, “I didn’t know you could do that!” Now, you do, too. Just type a word or two of what you’re looking for to find a pic fast!