Photosweeper for Macs

PhotoSweeper is a fast, precise & super efficient tool to eliminate similar or duplicate photos in any size photo collections. It works with photos from Apple Photos, iPhoto, Aperture, PhaseOne Capture One and Adobe Lightroom libraries as well as photos from your hard drives and external storages.

Do you have duplicate photos in your iPhoto or Photos Library that you want to get rid of, but dread the time it will take to go through each photo one by one? If so, PhotoSweeper is for you. PhotoSweeper locates all duplicate photos and allows you to review each photo side by side to decide which photo you want to keep or trash. In not only locates duplicate files, it finds very similar photos. Using this feature you can find photos taken a few seconds apart, or photos taken using the burst mode on your iPhone.

The directions below are using Apple’s Photos application, but PhotoSweeper works with iPhoto 9.x, Aperture 3.x, Adobe Lightroom 3.x and Capture One 8.x and newer.

Here is a detailed PhotoSweeper user manual. And a Video explaining how to use PhotoSweeper.

1. Before you begin, make sure you have a full backup of your Photos Library.
2. Close out of the Photos app.
3. Buy a copy of PhotoSweeper, currently $10, from either the AppStore or the PhotoSweeper website. Get the app downloaded and installed on your Mac.
4. Open PhotoSweeper on your Mac and click the Media Browser button, then click the plus sign button, select your Photos Library.
5. From the Media Browser window drag your Photos Library into the PhotoSweeper window.
6. Click the Compare button. This can take a while depending upon how many duplicates you have.
7. Select the Duplicate Files option. This will locate exact duplicates.
8. One-by-one, click on each group of duplicate photos listed on the left-hand side to review the photos.
9. In each group, you’ll see which photo(s) are marked in red. This indicates that they’ll be deleted. To change a photos marking simply click on it, as indicated.
10. Once you’ve reviewed all groups of photos then click the Trash button in the lower left corner.
11. PhotoSweeper doesn’t immediately delete the photos. Instead, it moves them into an Album named Trash (PhotoSweeper). You can control-click on this Album and select Delete Photos to delete them permanently.
12. Next, you’ll want to run a SimilarPhotos comparison of your photos. Just follow the steps above, but choose the similar photos button instead.

The Similar Photos option then lets you adjust the Time Gap and Matching Level of photos you took seconds apart and that are nearly identical. This will include photos taken using Burst Mode as well as other photos that you took rapidly as you were trying to capture some action.

PhotoSweeper is a great way to organize and delete duplicate photos in a flash.

Until Next Time

Megabite