How to find duplicate and similar photos on a Mac
Duplicate photos pile up from phone imports, exports, messaging apps and backups. How you find them depends on where they live: inside the Photos library, or in ordinary folders.
Inside the Photos library
On macOS 13 Ventura and later, Photos finds duplicates itself. Open Photos, look under Utilities › Duplicates in the sidebar, review each group and click Merge. Merging keeps the best version and combines the metadata. If you use iCloud Photos, the change applies on all your devices, and removed items stay in Recently Deleted for 30 days.
Don't delete files from inside the Photos library package in Finder; that can damage the library. Always work through the Photos app.
In folders: exact duplicates
Downloads, Desktop, exported albums and camera-card imports often hold byte-for-byte copies (IMG_1234.JPG and IMG_1234 2.JPG). Comparing names is unreliable; comparing contents is what counts. A good tool narrows candidates by size first, then confirms with a checksum such as SHA‑256 so different photos are never treated as copies.
In folders: similar photos
Bursts, slightly different shots and edited copies aren't identical files, so checksum tools miss them. Finding these needs image comparison. Here you want to review each group rather than delete in bulk, because “nearly the same” is a judgement call.
Doing it with Glint
- Duplicate Files compares size, then the first 64 KB, then a full SHA‑256 hash. At least one copy of every group always stays.
- Similar Photos groups bursts, edits and near-identical shots using Apple's on-device Vision image analysis, with three strictness levels. It suggests keeping the highest-resolution image and marks the rest for your review.
- Both work on folders you choose. Similar Photos doesn't scan the Photos library; use Photos' own Duplicates album for that.
- Everything you remove goes to Quarantine first, and nothing is uploaded: the comparison happens on your Mac.
Tip: RAW + JPEG pairs from a camera are two different files, not duplicates. Decide whether you want to keep both before cleaning a camera import.
Glint is a free disk cleaner for macOS 14 Sonoma and later, on Apple Silicon and Intel. No limits, no account, and everything stays on your Mac.