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iPhoto, Exterminate Duplicated Photos
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Upon importing our most memorable photos to iPhoto, duplication of original photos can't be avoided, sometimes even take up most of our precious storage space. I believe we won't let duplicated stack of photos fill up our free space.
In the case that you want to free your storage, you can delete your original photos. But beforehand, let's check whether those photos are already inside your iPhoto Library.
There is an usual place where you can find those mentioned photos…
Inside iPhoto Library
By default, iPhoto Library will be created and saved to Pictures folder under your username. Make sure you find it and then follow these steps to see all imported photos.
- Control-click on your iPhoto Library
- Choose Show Package Contents from appearing contextual menu
-
You will see several folders inside
- Originals - Store Imported Photos
- Modified - Store Edited/Modified Photos
- Data - Store Scaled Down Thumbnails
- After you've seen those photos, you should have rest assured to delete your original photos and remove duplicates
By removing duplicated photos, I've managed to get extra 5GB available space for my Mac.
Other Unknown Places
Perhaps you've never created your iPhoto Library inside Pictures folder and you can't remember where you've built it. You can open your iPhoto, control-click on one of the thumbnails and choose Show Original File.
Shown Above. Showing Original File from Photo Album
After you've finished the cleaning, don't forget to empty your trash~
Just to re-emphasize, you can delete photos from outside iPhoto Library from where they're imported from (let's say from your Photos folder); Any photos inside iPhoto Library aren't to be deleted.
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Tips and Tricks
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iPhoto,
Trick
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19 Comments
Claudio
So, which ones are safe to delete after all? Keep the ones in the data folder and get rid of the ones on the originals folder?
ModuLIZER
Claudio - the "Data" folder only contains thumbnails and will be created again... the focus point here must be the "Originals" folder. Be careful when deleting from "Originals" not all files is duplicated to the "Modified" folder... only files there are... well... modified... is duplicated. So you can't just delete "Originals" without checking "Modified" first. There must be a application that does this??? checks for duplicates cross the two folders and only deletes duplicated files from "Originals"... anyone?
Wendy
Maybe this cause a bit of confusion. What is meant by original photos are the photos imported to your iPhoto Library (maybe it's in another folder). Photos inside your iPhoto Library are required to be there so iPhoto can display them.
ModuLIZER
Wendy - OK, I get what you mean now. I didn’t quite understand as I always import from camera and have not run across this issue. The duplicate issue also exists in the "Originals" vs. "Modified" folders in the iPhoto Library and there is potentially much more hard disk space to free here. It really bugs me that Apple haven’t created a overwrite original feature in iPhoto, that search and show duplicates side by side with all metadata and gives the options to: "Ignore", "Overwrite original with modified" and "discard changes". Actually there should be an "advanced user" setting to always overwrite original.
macin
I think that it's very time-consuming operation. If I understand this correctly I have to find two that same picture in "Originals" and "Modify" folder one by one. there should be an option directly in "Advanced setting", which allow to overwrite original file.
Jean
I haven't seen anything so bad explained like this. Something told me to back up the original folder somewere, the way it is. I did it, thanks God. After have read it twice i understood to delete the ORIGINALS. I checked other folders like Data and saw the photos were there. So I deleted the Originals. What a nightmare to get everything back the way it was! Averywone that read this article will understand that, delete original. Bad advice, and we got it in our e-mail!
total converter mac
It may delete a backup.
ONebulus
Wow. The only thing this article was good for was helping me find the iPhoto data dump and how to enter it. I do not recommend deleting ANYTHING from this data dump. Seek further sources before attempting anything of this nature.
ouch!
Don't change anything in the iPhoto Library Folder via the Finder or any other application. iPhoto depends on the structure as well as the contents of this folder. Moving things, renaming things or otherwise making changes will prevent iPhoto from working and could even cause you to damage or lose your photos.
Veny
Very confusing, be very carefull! I tested it on just one picture and looked like it,s working. If you open the iPhoto after deleting the picture from original folder and go to Events, thumbnail of the deleted picture is still there, but IT CANNOT BE OPEN. My advise, do not touch iPhoto library unless you realy know what you are doing. With troday's cost of storage media, it is not such a big deal!
connectionfailure
Agree with other posts. In general it is a bad idea to mess around inside the Library folder. Its quite easy to get confused or interrupted and leave your iPhoto database corrupted. Then it must be rebuilt. It's probably better to search for some software to help such as iPhoto Diet or Duplicate Annihilator. (I do not own either product or work for them etc.). Search macupdate, versiontracker, iusethis, softpedia, wakoopa or your favorite mac software site to get one of these programs.
Am I the onl one that got this?
Okay I understand how there may have been some confusion but this article did not say anything about touching or changing your iPhoto library. It says it is okay to delete from where you originally imported the files from. Do not delete from your iPhoto library! Delete from original folder (original import source)!
Larry W. Banyash, MD
so... I purchased the duplicate annihilator--which was a farce. Apple does not have a way to delete the many many duplicates from my Iphoto file without serious risk??
Stephanie
so... I did exactly what this tutorial said... deleted the photos which were outside the iphoto library... but this corrupted the library. Restoring the photos to their original location only worked for some photos. Now what?
Mickle
Stephanie - Are you sure you deleted the files NOT in the iphoto library folder, as the files inside iphoto shouldn't be corrupted if you did. I have two sets of photos, the ones on my external and the ones in my iphoto library. The photos i move from the external to iphoto are copied to the library so i should have one set on the mac and one set as back up on my external. Thats just my way of doing things.
Athanagor
This is rubbish, how can you be giving advices that are so confusing.
G D
When I delete a photo it does not go away. Also, in the past I have deleted photos and the gray box remains with the caption but no photo. How do I get rid of both of these? Thank you
John R Feeney D.O
been through med school, residency and 20+ yrs of medical practice and this darn program (iPhoto) is the thing that's trying to kill me! agree that this article if anything is extremely confusing - i can't stand it - i have upwards of 6 of every photo (16,000 - that's about 2600 originals ! that is alot of wasted space I have 1T hard drive - but it's the darn fact of the matter -i want to be able to get rid of these duplicates and i can't believe it's this hard in this day and age and esp. with a mac!
Roger
I hope nobody is trying to follow this "advice". It's not only confusing as hell but dangerous, and could easily result in corrupting your iPhoto library. Why are there no dates on these postings? Who runs this site?
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