Participant

Question

Can't delete duplicates without deleting them all

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
February 17, 2018
4 replies
3566 views

I'm starting to pull my hair on this problem. For some weird reasons, I have duplicate of many of my edited photos. The duplicate is unedited and seems to be in the catalog only, as I have no duplicate in the actual folders. I wouldn't mind deleting the duplicate in lightroom one by one but when I do, all the duplicates (including the original) go away. I just don't know what to do now.

(When I delete or remove any of the grey one, the same looking grey and the green go away frustratingly)

This topic has been closed for replies.

samuell18410272Author

Participant

Just to do a follow up on this. I have not resolved this problem yet.

I kinda closed the issue with a workaround, wich was to export XMP on all my 18k+ photograph of my entire catalog. Created a new catalog and re-imported them all. The issue isn't resolve in a sense that the problematic pictures are still problematic, but at least when I "Synchonize" and tick "Open dialog box", I can tick "Do not import suspected duplicates" and then they disapear from the importing dialog box.

JohanElzenga

Community Expert

Is it possible to post one of those images, including the XMP file? Perhaps in Dropbox?

-- Johan W. Elzenga

Rob_Cullen

Community Expert

(I am late to the discussion)

I see the problem as very strange but my first suggestions would be to-

Delete the Previews folder.

Restart the computer.

Restart Lightroom, allow previews to re-build.

Consider also-

If you save Metadata to XMP files with the intention to Import photos into a new catalog then much information is lost!

Many things aren’t stored in XMP, including-

Flags, Virtual copies, Develop History, Develop panel switch positions, Collections, Publish Services, Books, Slideshows, Saved Prints, Web Galleries, and a bunch of other bits. (Reference: Victoria Bampton )

Regards. My System: Windows-11, Lightroom-Classic 15.1.1, Photoshop 27.3.1, ACR 18.1.1, Lightroom 9.0, Lr-iOS 10.4.0, Bridge 16.0.2 .

JohanElzenga

Community Expert

My suggestion is not to import all the photos into a new catalog, my suggestion is to use this only on the offending photos (the ones with multiple thumbnails) and then import them again into the same catalog to see if that solves the problem of having multiple database entries for the same image. You are correct that this would delete a few things, such as the edit history, but nothing major. Try it with one photo first and make a catalog backup before you do.

-- Johan W. Elzenga

JohanElzenga

Community Expert

This suggests a problem in the database itself. It seems you have multiple records for one and the same image, which should not be possible. You can try to solve this as follows (make a catalog backup first!):

1: Select the edited version of the image

2: Go to menu 'Metadata - Save Metadata to File'

3: Delete the image from the catalog (which should cause all copies to be deleted)

4: Import the image again either by using 'File - Import' or by right-clicking on the folder in Lightroom and choosing 'Synchronize Folder'.

Because you have written the metadata (i.e. the edits) to XMP before you deleted the image, the edits will be read when you import the image again. And (hopefully) now your import will only create one database record as it should.

-- Johan W. Elzenga

Just Shoot Me

Legend

JohanEl54 wrote
This suggests a problem in the database itself. It seems you have multiple records for one and the same image, which should not be possible. You can try to solve this as follows (make a catalog backup first!):
1: Select the edited version of the image
2: Go to menu 'Metadata - Save Metadata to File'
3: Delete the image from the catalog (which should cause all copies to be deleted)
4: Import the image again either by using 'File - Import' or by right-clicking on the folder in Lightroom and choosing 'Synchronize Folder'.
Because you have written the metadata (i.e. the edits) to XMP before you deleted the image, the edits will be read when you import the image again. And (hopefully) now your import will only create one database record as it should.

This will notwork.

OP Do Not Do this.

When you Delete image files from the Catalog it also removes the XMP file for that/those images.

You can REMOVE PHOTO and then Select the REMOVE BUTTON which should keep both the image and the corresponding XMP file in the original folders they are in.

JohanElzenga

Community Expert

Not true. When you save metadata to files, a separate XMP file is created next to a raw file. In case of tiff or jpeg, the metadata are written into the file header. Both are NOT deleted when you delete the image from the Lightroom catalog (only the metadata in the catalog itself is deleted), and are read by Lightroom when you import the image again. Try it yourself with a single image if you don't believe me.

-- Johan W. Elzenga

Just Shoot Me

Legend

In the screen shot you posted I only see one image that has been edited.

Also you are not showing the actual File Name with Extension.

When was the last time you restarted your computer?

A larger screen shot showing the Folders in the "Folders" section of the left hand panel might help.

Have you Right Clicked on one of the suspected duplicates and selected Show in "Finder/File Explorer" to see if they are in a different folder than you think they are in?

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