You don’t have to know the details about each image at this time, and you won’t delete any unwanted duplicates until later. You’re performing this scan to familiarize yourself with the files in your collection.ĭo a quick visual check, noting where you see similar images. If anything looks unusual, you can see more information by right clicking on a photo and choosing “Properties” (PC), or “Get info” (Mac). Scan through your images quickly, noting any irregularities in file size or name. If you’ve already spent some time selecting some favorites pictures from an event and created some project folders, make a note of those to reference later during the duplicate scan. folders named for specific events, people, or dates). This will help your duplicate cleaning program move quickly. When a folder contains more than 10,000 images, consider dividing it into multiple folders named after the source folder (i.e.

Number of folders (there are usually a large number if you copied your Pictures or My Pictures folders from your Computer).

Start by scanning through the folders on your hard drive and make a list of things such as:

Windows commands vary by version, but look in the File Explorer View settings for “Large Icons,” “Small Icons,” “Icons,” or “Titles.” To see this view on a Mac, open your Finder window and click View > as Icons. ” This way you can see the image in addition to the file name. A simple way to spot check your photo files is to use “Icon view. Now that you have all of your photos on your hard drive, open the folders and photo files using File Explorer (PC) or Finder (Mac). In this process, you will take a bird’s eye review of your photos, learn how to use duplicate cleaning software, and identify which photos to keep. This second part of our series provides tips to quickly scan and compare your images in order to remove duplicates.

Now it’s time to sift through your photos and find out exactly what you’ve got. Got your photos all gathered into one place? Great! You can breathe a little easier knowing you’re on your way to having any photo available at your fingertips in just a few seconds. Read Part Three (Simple Strategies for Organizing and Maintaining Your Photo Collection) here. Read Part One (How to Corral Your Digital Photos) here. This is Part Two of a series on gathering all your photos into a Digital Photo Hub.

Getting rid of duplicate photos