How to Delete Duplicate Images from Photo Gallery

Windows computer comes with multiple utilities however there is an important utility missing. There is no inbuilt feature to delete duplicate photos. We take backups of our smartphones, cameras and other storage devices on our PCs and knowingly or unknowingly we end up accumulating a lot of duplicate images on our devices.

Unfortunately, Microsoft Windows doesn’t offer any such tool that can find and remove duplicate photos from the computer. We can do it the hard way (manually) or use one of the best duplicate photo finders to automatically identify and eliminate duplicate photos from our device. Here in this article, you will first explore the manual methods and then explore how duplicate image finder software works.

Manual Method 1: Remove Duplicate Photo Using Windows Explorer

This is the traditional method that we follow most of the times when we want to explore any file or folder. All thanks to the thumbnail preview of images in Windows Explorer to identify and delete duplicate photos. Here is how you can do it!

Step 1. Press (Win + E) key to open Windows Explorer and click on the ‘Pictures’ folder.

Step 2. Right-click on the empty area and click on the ‘Sort by’ option to sort images by ‘Name’ and search for images with a similar name or (Copy) written before an image name.

Step 3. Compare the image size and date if they are similar. If you find an exact match, you can erase any one of them.

Step 4. You can also Right-click on the empty space and click on the ‘View’ option to select ‘Large Icons’ option. This will preview a thumbnail of all the images in the folder. If you find any duplicate image, check if it is an edited version or the updated version. We always keep the updated version.

Step 5. You can also check the Documents folder and follow the same steps from 2-4. While checking out documents, sort them with size, name, or date modified to look for similar entries. You can open both the files and check which one to keep or delete.

Step 6. Switch between different folders and sub-folders to look for similar images and delete duplicate images, documents, files music whenever detected. Open multiple interfaces of Windows Explorer for side-by-side comparison.

Manual Method 2: Delete Duplicate Photo Using Google Photos

Google Photos is not only a perfect place to store photos, but it also comes with an intuitive feature to identify and block duplicate photos from getting uploaded. Though the feature is not robust enough to segregate lookalike images or edited images it works well on exact copies. The process is simple!

Step 1. Open your browser and log in to your Google account.

Step 2. Click on the nine dots to open ‘Google Apps’ on the top right corner and select Google Photos.

Step 3. Upload all the images from folders and subfolders on your Google Photos account. Google Photos will work explicitly to identify and remove duplicate images from getting transferred. It will only upload unique images on the Google Photos folder. Check out in the image, out of 77 total images that we tried to upload including duplicates, Google Photos only uploaded 54 unique photos.

Step 4. Here also you can explore photos as you explored in Windows Explorer and can check the preview of the images. If you find a duplicate image with slight changes, eliminate it from the folder. Once you confirm that you only have unique images, you can transfer them back on the PC in a new folder.

Step 5. Compare both the folders side-by-side and check the difference in the image count. Recheck them in Windows Explorer and delete if there is any lookalike.

Step 6. Once done, delete the old folder and keep the new one with unique photos in your PC.

Automatic Method: Remove Duplicates Using Duplicate Photos Fixer:

Manual methods are time taking tiring and less efficient in duplicate image finding. Automated methods are much efficient and effective with the help of duplicate picture finders. There are numerous automated duplicate image finders that can help you attain 100 % uniqueness however we have compared, tested and reviewed the best duplicate photo finders and listed the best one. You can check out the Comparison of Best Duplicate Photo Finders & Cleaners for 2021.

Duplicate Photos Fixer:

This is one of the best tools that we have reviewed to find and delete duplicate photos from your internal/external hard drive and other storage sources that we connect to the computer. The tool is effective enough to scan all common image file formats and perform different checks to scan, identify and remove duplicate photos.

The advanced scan engines can detect duplicate, edited, original or identical photos in a few minutes. You just need to download and install the product and initiate the scan. You need to add folders & sub-folders to initiate a scan on a selected drive or device.

There are two comparison modes Exact Match or Similar Match to find and remove duplicate images. As and when a duplicate image is identified, it automatically creates a group and selects all the identical images to preview.

It shows a preview in a group format where you can uncheck the one you wish to keep and delete rest of them. You can also check the details of identical images and decide before you remove the image. Once selected, click on the ‘Delete Marked’ button to remove duplicate photos from your device. The software is compatible with all the latest versions of Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS.

Summing Up:

If you just deal with a few photos in a couple of days, you can manually find and delete duplicate photos however if you are juggling with a lot of images in different folders, devices, date and time, the best duplicate photos finder is what you need on your device. It’s a quick solution to scan thousands of images from different folders or devices and remove duplicate photos.