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Forum Discussion
Removal of duplicate photos in my dropbox photo library
I somehow uploaded several hundred photos from my iphone to dropbox. Not sure how I did it, but now I see a lot of duplicate photos in dropbox (carousel).
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
Jennifer I had the same problem a few months ago, once I downloaded carrousel I was able to delete the duplicate pictures.
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.
Here's what I've found - I had uploaded the "pictures" folder from my computer to Dropbox which included the Photos library.photoslibrary folder (maybe the folder that apple uses to sync devices?). This folder has multiple copies of each photo I've taken (master file, original file, and sometimes edited file). When I view pictures using the "pictures tab" in dropbox, I end up being shown the multiple copies of all my photos from both the Camera Uploads files (automatically from my iPhone into dropbox) plus the Photo library copies of the images.
I'm not sure what to do about the issue though - I don't want to delete the photos library folder from dropbox without downloading it back to my computer (however, I don't know the file size and can't determine if it will fit on my hard drive or not). As a result, I feel that the dropbox "photos" tab is basically unusable for me as it displays way too many duplicates.
In the file with the duplicates select every image that you want to delete by clicking ABOVE the name/text of the image. Do not click on the name or it will open the file. On a Mac you keep the command button pressed as you click-select every image (each box turns pale blue once selected) which means all these selected image turn blue. Finally, after selecting all, right click for the list that includes 'delete' and press this. I don't think there is a quicker way.
You miss the point, Alex. We need a way to "Find" the duplicates in order to delete them. I can do this on my laptop with a duplicate fixer app, but would like an app or function to do that on my IPhone, which is what I use almost exclusively. Thanks for trying.
