A Guide to Remove Duplicate Photos in Google Photos

Google Photos is a popular Internet-based photo storage and photo-sharing platform. It comes pre-installed on Android using smartphones and offers users to save an unlimited number of photos and videos if they choose to upload them in High Quality.

Combining the power of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning makes it easier and fun to organize your photos in one place. AI can easily identify the faces of individuals and pets, and group them together. For instance, if you’re a pet lover and take regular photos of your cat, AI will identify your cat and group all of her photos together into a separate album. Spend more time taking high-quality photos of your cat rather than organizing and managing your albums.

Artificial Intelligence also enables Google Photos to search through an entire collection of hundreds of thousands of photos with three different parameters- Places, People and Things. Google Photos uses the geo-tagging information to identify well-known landmarks in your photos so that you can search your photos by merely typing a location.

 

Find & Fix Duplicate Images in Google Photos

Let’s see how you can take care of duplicate photos and videos from Google Photos.

 

Step # 1: Download the Entire Google Photos Data

First and foremost, download everything from your Google Photos account to your local hard disk. The procedure is as follows:

1. Open up the Download your data page.
2. In the Select data to include section, use the Deselect all link to deselect everything.
3. Scroll down and look for the Google Photos option.
4. Mark the Google Photos checkbox.

   

5. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Next step.
6. Now you will be prompted to make a few selections before this stage is over.
7. Set the Export type to a One-time archive.

   

8. Select your preferred delivery method. Be advised that no matter which method you follow, you will have to download the data to your computer. So try to select the route through which you can easily save the data.
9. Set the File type to .zip. Zip files can be opened on almost any computer with the help of simple data extract software. Select the archive size of your choice and then click Create archive.

   

10. The archive will be created very quickly. In most cases, you will receive an email with a link to the archive within a few minutes of the process being initiated.
11. Once you receive the email containing the link to the archive, open it up and download your Google Photos data contained in it.

 

Step # 2: Search Photos For Duplicates

Next, search the downloaded Google Photos for duplicates using specialized software.

1. Extract the downloaded data to a folder.
2. Now download Clone Files Checker from its official website. Install the program on your PC.
3. Click the Add button under the Select Drive/ Folder section and select the folder to which you extracted the data in step # 1.
4. Set the scan options in place. Use All Files to scan everything- documents, images, music, videos and archives; or use Custom to scan individual file types.

   

5. You can use the file size filters to further narrow down the data that will be scanned. However, please note that you need to be absolutely clear about everything. You can also safely ignore this step as it is entirely optional.
6. Click Start Search to launch the scan and now allow CFC sometime to do the job.
7. CFC will soon bring up a scan results window. Click Fix Wizard.

   

8. Select between Newest and Oldest in the next window.

   

9. The last step is to choose between Permanent Delete and Move to Folder.

   

 

Step # 3: Remove Old Photos from Server

Now before you upload the cleaned-up data to Google Photos, you must remove the data that is currently sitting there. All the data you delete will be moved to the Trash section of Google Photos, from where you can restore it anytime in the next 60 days before it is permanently wiped off.

1. Open up Google Photos.
2. Go to the Photos tab in the left-side navigation menu.
3. Select the first item using the checkbox on the top left corner of the screen.
4. Scroll down till the last item in your account and press Shift and click the checkbox to easily select all the data in your Google Photos account.
5. Click the Delete icon in the upper right corner and select Move to trash.

   

 

Step # 4: Upload De-duplicated Photos

Now you can upload your genuine, duplicate-free photos and videos to Google Photos. Here are the steps to do so:

1. Click the Upload icon on the upper right of the screen and select Computer.

   

2. Select all the photos/ videos and upload them to Google Photos.
3. You can also drag and drop all of your photos to Google Photos. This is much easier and quicker.
4. The upload process will take a while to conclude. Patiently wait while the job is done.