CleanLoupeTo find duplicate photos on a Mac, open Photos and click Utilities › Duplicates in the sidebar. Photos lists each set of copies side by side; click Merge on a set, or select several sets and merge them together. Photos keeps the best version, and the extra copies go to Recently Deleted for 30 days.
That built-in album handles most true duplicates for free. It does have limits, though, and knowing them saves you from hunting for copies Photos was never going to show you.
How duplicates end up in a Photos library
Knowing where copies come from helps you stop making new ones:
- Importing the same card or folder twice. Photos normally asks whether to import duplicates, but it is easy to click through, and files that were renamed or re-saved can slip past the check.
- Saved copies from messaging apps. A photo you sent and then saved back from Messages or WhatsApp often comes back as a separate, recompressed file. The originals still sit in Messages; Messages taking up space covers clearing those.
- Merging libraries. Combining an old library with a new one, or importing an old iPhoto export, can bring in hundreds of copies at once.
- Exports re-imported. Exporting a photo as JPEG to edit elsewhere and then dragging it back in creates a second item.
Find duplicates with the Photos Duplicates album
The Duplicates album arrived in macOS 14 Sonoma and is in macOS 15 Sequoia and macOS 26 Tahoe. Menu and sidebar names can shift slightly between macOS versions, but the steps are the same.
- Open Photos.
- In the sidebar, find the Utilities section and click Duplicates. If you do not see it, Photos either has not found any duplicates or has not finished analysing the library yet.
- Scroll through the sets. Each row shows the copies with their size and date, so you can see which one is the larger original.
- To merge one set, click Merge next to it, then confirm.
- To merge many at once, select several sets (Command-click, or Command-A for all) and click Merge in the toolbar. Photos tells you how many items it will merge before it does anything.
What Merge actually does
Merge is not the same as deleting. Photos keeps the highest-quality version in the set and combines relevant data from the others, such as captions and keywords, into that one photo. The leftover copies go to Recently Deleted, where they stay for 30 days before the space is truly freed.
If you want the space back sooner, open Recently Deleted, authenticate, and click Delete All once you have checked nothing important went in by mistake.
Why the Duplicates album may be missing or empty
- Indexing is not finished. After an upgrade, a large import or turning on iCloud Photos, Photos analyses the library in the background. On a big library that can take hours or longer. Leave Photos open with the Mac plugged in and check again later.
- There really are no exact duplicates. The album only appears when Photos has found something.
What the Duplicates album does not find
The album looks for copies that are the same image. Apple describes it as catching identical photos and copies that differ only in resolution, file format or metadata. That leaves three common gaps:
- Near-duplicates. Five shots of the same group taken a second apart are not duplicates to Photos. Each one is a different photo. These are often the bigger pile, and they need a different approach, covered in how to delete similar photos on Mac.
- Edited versions you exported and re-imported. If you cropped or filtered a copy before bringing it back, it may no longer count as the same image.
- Photos outside the library. Image files in Downloads, Desktop or a backup folder are invisible to Photos. For those, see how to find duplicate files on Mac.
A manual check for stubborn copies
If you suspect duplicates that the album is not showing, you can look for them yourself inside Photos:
- In Library, switch to All Photos and use View › Sort to sort by date if your version offers it, so copies imported together sit side by side.
- Use the search field to search for a filename you know was duplicated, such as
IMG_4021. Copies from the same camera keep the same base name. - Select two suspected copies and press Command-I (Window › Info) to compare their size, dimensions and date.
- Delete the copy you do not want with the Delete key. It goes to Recently Deleted like everything else.
This is slow, so it is best for a handful of known problems rather than a whole library.
Before you delete: iCloud Photos and backups
If you use iCloud Photos, merging or deleting on the Mac applies to iCloud and every device using the same Apple Account, including your iPhone and iPad. That is usually what you want with true duplicates, since the kept copy stays everywhere. Just be aware that it is not a Mac-only change.
Make sure you have a recent backup too. Time Machine is fine. Recently Deleted is a safety net for 30 days, not a backup.
How CleanLoupe does it
CleanLoupe's Photos module scans your Apple Photos library and groups exact duplicates in one list, next to look-alike sets, screenshots and large videos. It reads the library through PhotoKit, Apple's photo framework, and compares images with Apple's Vision framework on your Mac. No photo is uploaded, and the analysis never leaves the computer.
Here is how it differs from the Duplicates album:
- It deletes, it does not merge. You choose which copies in a set to delete, and CleanLoupe deletes those. It does not perform Photos' Merge, so captions and keywords on the deleted copies are not combined into the one you keep. If that metadata matters to you, use the Merge button in Photos for those sets.
- It also finds look-alikes. Photos taken seconds apart are grouped in their own section, with the best shot picked and kept, which covers the gap the Duplicates album leaves.
- It goes through Photos' own safety net. Every deletion uses macOS's confirmation dialog, and deleted items sit in Photos' Recently Deleted album for 30 days. With iCloud Photos on, deletions sync to your other devices exactly as they would from Photos.
CleanLoupe needs photo library access to do any of this. Without it, the Photos module and the photo part of Smart Scan are skipped. It does not look at image files outside the Photos library; that is a job for the guide on duplicate files linked above.
CleanLoupe is free, with no subscription, trial or ads. A companion iPhone app, CleanLoupe – Photo Cleaner, is coming soon.
Duplicates are only one part of a large library. For the full picture, including Optimize Mac Storage, see how to free up Photos storage on Mac. Videos are often the biggest single items, covered in how to find large videos in Photos.
FAQ
Where is the Duplicates album in Photos on Mac?
In the Photos sidebar under Utilities, on macOS 14 Sonoma and later. It appears only after Photos has found at least one set of duplicates, which can take a while on a large library.
Does merging duplicates in Photos lose any data?
Merge keeps the highest-quality version and combines relevant data from the other copies, such as keywords and captions, into it. The extra copies go to Recently Deleted for 30 days, so you can recover one if needed.
Is there a free way to remove duplicate photos on Mac?
Yes. The Duplicates album in Photos is built in and free. CleanLoupe is also free and adds look-alike sets and large videos to the same review, but it deletes the copies you pick rather than merging them.
Why does Photos not show my duplicate photos?
Either Photos has not finished analysing the library, or the copies are not identical. Edited versions and shots taken a second apart are different photos to Photos, so they never appear in the Duplicates album.
Will deleting duplicates on my Mac remove them from my iPhone?
If both use iCloud Photos with the same Apple Account, yes. The deletion syncs, and the copies sit in Recently Deleted on every device for 30 days. The copy you keep stays on all devices.
If you would rather review duplicates and look-alikes in one place, download CleanLoupe and run its Photos scan.