macOS Photos App – How to Remove Duplicate Files from the Library

macosphotos.app

I am running OSX 10.12.6 and sorting a large number of mostly not native digital pictures (scans from negatives).
Using the command:

fdupes -r -A  "/Users/yves/Pictures/Photothèque.photoslibrary/Masters"

I get many results of duplicates like below, same files but in different subfolders:

/Users/yves/Pictures/Photothèque.photoslibrary/Masters/2019/12/27/20191227-174527/_NIK3130.tif
/Users/yves/Pictures/Photothèque.photoslibrary/Masters/2019/12/31/20191231-081818/_NIK3130.tif
/Users/yves/Pictures/Photothèque.photoslibrary/Masters/2020/01/02/20200102-183407/_NIK3130.tif

  1. Is this normal behavior ? I understand the same files may have been imported several times, but I wonder:

  2. is is safe to eliminate the duplicates and how best to do it ? For convenience I am using exiftool in combination with Applescript to adjust (reconstruct mostly) picture metadata in the Photos library from selected pictures and want to make sure I do this only once and for the correct file.

Best Answer

If they don't come up in Photos.app, I wouldn't touch what goes inside .photolibrary package. There are just too many questions of Photo library going wild. You anyway won't be saving much space there, if the files are tiny.

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