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gils3758504
Participating Frequently
December 2, 2018
Question

Can i detect duplicate media in Organizer?

  • December 2, 2018
  • 1 reply
  • 2928 views

Hi

I have PS  Elements 2019

when i'm in the organizer- is there a way to locate my duplicate files?

if not- is there a way to know where is my source files locate? is it where the back up is? is there "one" place for all stuff of the catalog?

Many thanks!

Gil

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1 reply

MichelBParis
MichelBParis
Legend
December 3, 2018

when i'm in the organizer- is there a way to locate my duplicate files?

Yes... and No.

The organizer works by storing, not the media files, but the information about the files in a catalog. The catalog stores the location of each file (drive and path), the exif data, your tags and captions etc.

The organizer has an 'import' feature to deal with new files from your camera or card reader. It's a downloader which stores your files in a default folder of your choice or individually where you want. If your files are already in your computer, no need to download, the organizer stores the actual location in the catalog ("Import from files and folders").

The download process has to prevent you from importing several times from your card and in general to create duplicates. It checks that the new files you try to import are not already in your current catalog. It compares the size in kB and the date_taken with the files already in the catalog. So, it rejects this kind of duplicates at import time.

The filtering process does no care about file names or visual similarity. The organizer has another tool to search for visual similarity and possible duplicates once the files are in the catalog.

- yes, the organizer can help finding duplicates in your catalog by visual similarity

- No, the organizer can't help with files which are not in your catalog.

is there a way to know where is my source files locate?

The information panel on the right has the information about the location of any file selected in the catalog.

If you mean the location of the file "already in the catalog", no easy way, you would have to do a search for files with the same date_taken and size.

is it where the back up is?

No. The backup process stores all the files and the catalog into a new folder of your choice.

is there "one" place for all stuff of the catalog?

The catalog itself is a folder containing many components, including the main database. Its location is shown by the menu Help >> System Information of the organizer.

Elements Organizer Help | Elements Organizer User Guide

mainly, the part about "Managing catalogs..."

    G
    gils3758504Author
    Participating Frequently
    December 3, 2018

    Thank you so much for a very detailed answer!

    got a few more..

    If i'm backing up my catalog- is this means i can remove the original files from my PC?

    where can i find the tool to help find the

    Greg_S.
    Community Expert
    Greg_S.Community Expert
    Community Expert
    December 3, 2018

    It's not clear from your original post exactly what information you are seeking.  So let me add to Michel's excellent description.

    On the left side of the Organizer window, you can open the folder panel.  If you open it with the "tree" view, you can see all folders on your computer that have files imported into your open catalog.  If you click on a folder, the grid will display all of the photos that have been imported from that folder.  The number of photos will also be displayed in the status bar.  If you open the folder in Windows File Explorer, you can compare the number of files to see whether they have all been imported.

    The Adobe Photo Downloader described by Michel does not always accurately determine whether a file on your memory card is a duplicate of a file already in the Organizer.  If you were to import a duplicate file from a memory card into the same computer folder as the earlier import, Windows will save it with a file name containing a suffix such as "-1".   When this happens, I do an Organizer file name search for "-1".   This will give me a clue that the file is a duplicate in the folder and can be deleted.

    As mentioned by Michel, you can find the folder for a file located in the Organizer by looking at the Information panel on the right side of the window.  This has a useful hot-link ("Location") which you can click to take you directly to a Windows File Explorer window.

    If i'm backing up my catalog- is this means i can remove the original files from my PC?

    Why do you want to do that? The Backup does copy all of the files to a backup location on your computer, but if you delete all your original files, they will no longer be available in the Organizer and will be listed as "missing."

    where can i find the tool to help find the

    I think what you are looking for is in the Find menu.  Look at the "By Visual Searches" option described by Michel.

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