If you are like me and most people these days, you take photos of absolutely everything. Pictures of your pets, your kids, your grandkids, what you’re having for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and on and on.
With the amazing cameras we carry in our pocket or purse residing on our smart phone, the pictures are equally impressive. And of course we want to share them with everyone, either on social media or in person. “Look, isn’t this a great shot!” we say as we shove our phones in people’s faces. Sort of like grandma used to make us look through albums of snaps.
With all this photo taking, it doesn’t take long for picture files to pile up, on our phones, on our computers and in our “cloud” storage. Many people have thousands of photos, many of which are either similar or even duplicates of others. Photo files created by these fancy cameras often average 3-4 megabytes each or more. This can clog up things quickly and use up a lot of your valuable storage.
For reference, the average size of an entire computer hard drive used to be measured in MEGABYTES (100s of bytes), and now are measured in GIGABYTES (1000’s of bytes), or even TERABYTES (millions of bytes)! So you can see how thousands of 3-4 megabyte pictures can add up in a hurry! Pictures are the biggest hog of drive space on virtually all modern electronic devices.
(I hate to admit it, but I’m as guilty as the next guy in that my library of photos is over 30,000 photos in size!) So, I should heed my own advice, maybe.
So, what do I do, you ask?
A dedicated Duplicate Photo Finder & Remover is what you need if your desktop, laptop, or smartphone is packed with lots of identical or similar-looking images. These multiple copies of the same photographs not only occupy tons of storage space. They also make your computer and other devices run slower over time. However, with the help of duplicate picture cleaners, one can easily find and remove those replica hidden copies.
Most of these programs are available for free and offer a lot of options for accurate identification of clone images. You can free up unnecessarily occupied space both on your computer and, in turn, in the cloud and boost computer or device performance.
As I’m using a Mac, I use a program called Gemini II that does a smart scan of my photo library and shows me identical photos. It also shows me any “similar” ones, which can happen often when you are happy snapping trying to get that great kid or pet shot. Many phones take “burst” shots” of up to twenty or more if you hold down the button, all milli-seconds apart, so essentially identical.
The software mentioned above for the most part also allows you to decide one at a time (if you have the time) on each duplicate or to mass delete 100s at a click if you’re feeling especially brave and confident that day. Gemini takes it a step further and just in case you were a bit hasty, it stores all the “removed” duplicates in a folder on iCloud. The folder Gemini Duplicates allows you one last chance to go through and make sure you want to get rid of them before deleting them forever. (Remember the back-up article?)
For other options for Windows computers, Macs, smart phones, tablets and such, do a Google search for “Duplicate Photo Finder or Cleaner” to see many free and paid options.
My advice would be to pay for reliable software when dealing with your precious memories. Many excellent programs can be found in the $30-$40 range. It’s a small price to pay for saving precious space and making your photos libraries easier to manage. Then you can find that great shot you took of your puppy, grandchild or that amazing lasagna you had last night.
I’m Captain iPad
