Dealing with duplicate photos can be a real headache for any Mac user. Apple’s Photos app on macOS Ventura offers a seemingly straightforward solution with its “Merge Duplicates” feature. While it appears convenient, especially compared to third-party apps like Photosweeper, proceeding with extreme caution is crucial. My personal experience highlights a significant risk: this feature can potentially wreak havoc on your photo library.
Like many, I faced a massive accumulation of duplicate photos, numbering in the tens of thousands. This issue likely stemmed from library corruption, possibly due to iCloud syncing glitches. Hoping for a quick fix, I used the “Merge Duplicates” feature. Unfortunately, instead of resolving the problem, it almost decimated my photo collection. The feature inexplicably deleted the superior copies of my photos, retaining the inferior ones.
By “wrong copies,” I mean that when presented with two JPEG images of identical dimensions and pixel counts, the Merge feature often chose to discard the larger file size version in favor of the smaller one. Logically, the smaller file size suggests higher compression and thus, lower image quality. Despite seeking clarification from Apple’s high-level creative media support, no one could definitively explain what “higher quality” meant in the context of the Merge feature. One representative even incorrectly asserted that identical pixel counts equate to identical quality, regardless of file size or compression – a dangerously misleading statement, particularly for those who value their photos, especially family memories. While there might be other factors influencing Apple’s quality assessment for JPEGs, none were offered, and the support remained insistent on mathematically unsound explanations.
Furthermore, and somewhat subjectively, the Merge feature seems biased towards keeping the newest dated copy of images with equal pixel counts, irrespective of file size or compression. This preference is problematic if, like me, you often backdate scanned photos or emailed images to reflect their actual capture date. In such cases, preserving a newer, potentially lower-quality version over an older, superior original is rarely desirable.
Apple support might reiterate their claim of preserving “higher quality” images. However, they have yet to provide a clear definition of “quality” beyond pixel count or HEIC format, which is inadequate. (It’s worth noting that some support representatives were indeed helpful in rebuilding my corrupted library, though they couldn’t fully rectify the duplicate issue).
This might be more detail than you initially sought, and perhaps warrants a dedicated post. However, if you intend to use the “Merge Duplicates” feature, I strongly advise you to meticulously review its proposed merges. More importantly, maintain external backups of all your full-size photos stored outside the Photos app. Like any software, the Photos app is susceptible to bugs, some of which can be quite damaging. Even after two years, I’m still in the process of fully recovering from this duplicate-related mishap, but I anticipate resolving it soon.
