How to Clean Up Duplicate Photos on a Mac (de-dupe) [2022]

One great new feature in MacOS Ventura (MacOS 13) is the ability to clean up duplicate images in your Apple Photos library. Photos now automatically detects duplicates, but it's up to you to finish the process and clean them up. This brief tutorial walks you through the basic process and includes tips on working faster, and what to watch out for.

Note that you'll need to have updated your Mac to Ventura; if you haven't done so already, the process is the same as the previous version, Monterey; details here:

And if you never learned how to select multiple items at once, that ESSENTIAL skill is covered here:

[kiawahmovies]

I listened to 3 other tutorials and none explained how to merge all duplicates at once. Thank you for your clear and thorough explanation because I had 2, 198 duplicates...

[trey]

One page summary at the end is the best.Thank you for saving us a lot of time and expense.

[eddiecervantes]

thank you so much you saved me so much time

[EZEvans]

Fantastic! I am subscripting and liking and will look at more of your videos for such well done and informative insights!

[AAAAA-elzz]

thank you so much for this tutorial i was looking for i am subscripting

[AdityaKumar-qomt]

duplicate option is not visible this time earlier it the clearly visible
please tell what should i do

[casiealane]

One problem! The 2 photos it is merging have different dates, years apart. Only one date is correct, when I click "merge" it doesn't let me tell them which date is correct!!

[danibryant]

I don't have the duplicate on my sidebar, how do I find it? I am updated to Ventura, when I click on the Photos it doesn't show up, I have several duplictaes, was able to do it earlier today but then the dupliate on the sidebar disappeared Thank you

[mqxcwwz]

But wait... If you select ALL, how do you know that isn't just making a single photo out of ALL the thousands that you just selected? There is NOTHING in the UI that explains anything other than this is happening. "Merge all items" means create a single copy from all those that are selected...