Duplicate Cleaner For iPhoto 4+

Duplicate Cleaner for iPhoto is a simple, useful tool that does its designated job admirably. It scans your iPhoto library for duplicates, a feature that arguably should have been built into iPhoto itself. After scanning, it lists the duplicate photos which it finds and allows you to manually curate these. Upon your selection, the Duplicate Cleaner would proceed to move these duplicates to the iPhoto trash for your further review and eventual deletion.

The utility offers some customisation in how your search is performed and presented. Importantly, it appears smart enough to ignore modified versions of a photo while able to detect true duplicates bearing different names. I have used version 1.8.01 of Duplicate Cleaner in tandem with iPhoto 9.5.1 to successfully weed out copies of photos that arose from sharing of files between my wife’s iPhone and mine.

Given the personal nature of photos, I am grateful for the stability of this utility. However, Duplicate Cleaner would be doubly useful if it is able to: 1) indicate the Event in which duplicates are physically located, hence allowing specific deletion rather than guess work; 2) a setting for deleting the most recent of the duplicates; 3) great customisation for its search function, such as the exclusion of Events. I rate 8/10.

Thank you, Systweak Software!

Only scans for duplicate photos found in individual iPhoto library. If you don’t merge your iPhoto libraries - for version compatibility - you will still have duplicates acroos different libraries. However, you can’t go wrong with this app. Simple interface and quick scanning. Worth it!

The software did the deletion speedily. That was good. When I checked IPhoto however, I found that some of my albums were empty i.e. there were no photos in them. I realised then that the application could have deleted at random. It did not preserve the photos in the albums, it just deleted a duplicate wherever it was detected. That made it necessary for me to bring in the photos into iPhoto again (fortunately I have saved them in my hard disk) and live with the duplicates. Perhaps the application can be improved to preserve all photos that are in albums. That would truly be useful for my purpose.