Removal of duplicate photos in my dropbox photo library

I love how dropbox is already using file hashes to save storage space, but somehow cannot use the same thing to detect exact duplications within the same drive.

A simple MD5 hash will just simply do this simple trick.

The system inadvertently uploaded from my hard drive a huge number of photos. They are in the Dropbox photo folder in a random-like fashion. Additionally, I get messages that I am out of space. How can I remove swiftly these unwanted photos.

Please advise. Many thanks.  GH

This happened to me last night. On my Iphone all my pics are showing duplicates. When I logged on to dropbox from my desktop ALL my files are showing a duplicate! So I need to manually delete these?!?

Jennifer I had the same problem a few months ago, once I downloaded carrousel I was able to delete the duplicate pictures. 

Well the good news is that they are dumping Carousel.  So now perhaps they will do the fixes they need to do for photos in Dropbox.

Try this If your iTunes or iPhone is clean you can delete everything in your DB file and then sync again with your devices (iCloud, mac/pc, iPhone etc).  If on the other hand you have duplicates on your devices as well the same in DB, do this: Download an app from the app store that detects duplicates, run the proper steps using the app of your liking, turn off auto syncing with DB before starting this process.  after deleting duplicates from your device login to DB and (keeping auto sync turned off in DB) and delete all from DB.  Then turn back on DB and sync from cleaned up device.

I may have made this sound confusing. sorry

While not directly related to the issue in the thread, I thought it might be helpful to share that there is an app for Mac OS X called Duplicate Detective, which is available on the Apple App Store. I usually copy all files from my Dropbox/Camera Uploads to my NAS and upload to Amazon, Google etc for safe keeping with multiple copies. I also use Duplicate Detective on my folders to identify exact duplicates. It does this by calculating a checksum (md5) on the binary, not by filename, so it is able to identify identical files regardless of name or where it is in the folder hierarchy. 

Another useful tool is EXIF Renamer http://www.qdev.de/?location=mac/exifrenamer which i use to rename photos to a consistent format, based on Dropbox format.

Once you've connected Dropbox to your computer with the Dropbox app, you can sync the photos and then use this guide to clean up the local folder. All changes will then be sent back to Dropbox and "Voila!" you've removed your duplicates.

http://www.howtogeek.com/117559/how-to-banish-duplicate-photos-with-visipic/

It even has functionality to loosen the matches and find rotated images.  Fancy. It found that over 10% of my photos were duplicates, and deleted the smaller resolution versions of each.

I use Duplicate Files Deleter as it is very effective. It is 100% accurate and performs the scan quickly.

I'd like to know where the local photo folder is in Dropbox. If I could find this I would simply drag onto Gemini... But I have a feeling this is easier said than done. I hate when tech becomes too technical. I like folders.