Many of us love capturing our favorite memories in digital photos. They give us a way to remember special moments and are one of the best souvenirs you can get your hands on!
However, when you have tons of photo files on your computer, it can be easy for you to use up precious disk space. What’s worse, it’s not uncommon for you to have duplicate photos hiding out in your photo libraries, taking up even more of your space.
To help you eliminate duplicate photo files and keep your pictures well-organized, we’ve put together a quick guide on how to find and delete duplicate photos. Let’s dive into how to ace your photo organization game!
Locate Your Duplicate Photos
The first step to duplicate photo management is to figure out exactly where you’re keeping your photo files. This way, you’ll be able to start going through and clearing out the duplicates.
Generally, photos are stored in the Pictures folder and in any subfolders in this area. However, it’s important to know that you may have duplicate images lurking in other areas too.
A few places you should check for photos include:
- Your Desktop folder
- Your local Dropbox folder
- Folders created by Photoshop, VSCO, Lightroom, and other editing software
- The Downloads folder
You may store photos in other places too, so it doesn’t hurt to go through all the folders on your computer just to double-check that you don’t have photos hidden somewhere.
Sort Your Images by Name
Now that you’ve identified all the places where you store photos, it’s time to get down to business and find duplicate photos. To do so, you’ll open up your Pictures folder and change the view to either Table or List view so you can view all your pictures at once.
Next, you’ll need to sort the images by name. You’ll immediately begin to see variations of the same photos. This will look something like IMG_001 and IMG_001(1). Numbers in brackets are added so your computer doesn’t have to overwrite the original photo.
Sort Your Images by Date
Another way to quickly clean up duplicate photos on your computer is to sort your images by date. Start by opening your Pictures folder and change the sort option to date.
If you notice any images have identical timestamps, those are duplicates. Make sure to preview those images before you erase them, just to be sure. Otherwise, you could end up accidentally deleting images that are slightly different after all.
Get Rid of Duplicate Photos Once and For All
With this handy guide, you’re ready to clear duplicate photos out of your image libraries and keep your storage space free. It’s time to take your photo management to the next level with this handy guide!
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