Prevent Bridge from importing duplicates?

[nathan_h]

I'm using Bridge on Max OSX Monterey (up to date version as of Dec 7 2021) and the import dialog works nicely EXCEPT it imports everything on my SD card on my camera, including TONS of duplicates from imports that have already taken place.

I don't delete my files from my SD card until the card is nearly full.  Its a simple effective backup in case something happens to the imports before they are stored in the cloud.

But the impact of this is that everything I import from today's shoot is fine but the software also re-imports everything I shot yesterday and already imported.

I'd like to keep my workflow simple and effective, and toggle the ability to not import files that have alraedy been imported.  But I cannot find this option in Bridge and the import dialog box.

[Sahil.Chawla]

Hi there,

Sorry to hear about this. Could you please try resetting the preferences of Bridge and let us know if it helps? https://helpx.adobe.com/bridge/kb/troubleshoot-errors-freezes-bridge.html

Regards,
Sahi

[nathan_h]

Thank you for the recommendation.  

It does not appear that this prevents Bridge from re-importing the same photos a second (and third etc) time each time.

[gary_sc · Accepted solution]

Hi Nathan,

First off, congrats on recognizing you do not want to delete files from the card until you have backups. This is a GREAT practice to follow.

Unfortunately there is no mechanism currently in PhotoDownloader that can automatically select only the recent shoot. In Lightroom Classic, you cannot import the same image you already have imported, but you're not working with Lightroom Classic.

I can think of two options for you. 

1) If you go into Advance mode in the PhotoDownloader, you can see two buttons on the bottom: one that "Checks all," the other "Unchecks all." First, click on the Uncheck All. Now, scroll to the bottom which is where the latest files are found. Click on the last file, the last image in the list. Now scroll upward until you see that first image that you took that day (the dates should be visible) and Shift-click that file. At this point, all of the images you took that day are selected. Now tap the "Check all" button and only THOSE files will be checked. You can now download only those images and past images will not be downloaded.

Process #2) (FWIW, this is what I do when I'm on holiday and I'm using my wife's laptop)

I download all of the images from that day's shoot and spend the evening working on the images until I'm done for the day. I then take an external hard drive I travel with and download all of the images and the work I did onto the hard drive. I now have two copies of the images: one on the computer and one on the hard drive. Once I've done that I know it's safe to format the card in my camera and I can go out the next day and take more photos. 

Let me know if either of these work for you.

[nathan_h]

Thank you very much for sharing these workarounds.

While this doesn't fix Bridge/Photodownloader per se, these two workarounds provide a solution until Adobe fixes it within the software.

So I'll mark this as a solution, since these ideas work, even though the best solution would be a fix from Adobe.

[gary_sc]

Hi Nathan,

Thank you for appreciating my approaches to resolving your issue, but I do understand, there's nothing broken here. This is working as expected.

Let me explain: if you were working in Lightroom Classic, the files are entered into the database that LRC functions around (in a nutshell, LRC is ACR with a Database. It's more than that, of course, but in the grand scheme of things, that's what it is). So when you've Imported the file AG_05493.CR2 into LRC, it can go, "Oh, I've seen that file before, I will not let the user import it a 2nd time."

But Bridge has no database structure whatsoever. If anything, controlling Bridge is pretty much Fleshware (if you're familiar with the term). Simply, there is no way for Bridge to know that yesterday's files have already been downloaded. To make that step would require a LOT of engineering time that could probably be better used in other areas. (Sadly, Bridge has way too many bugs as it is.)

About the only thing I can think of to help you on this is to make a Feature Request for Bridge to only allow "Today's images." Alternatively (maybe better), have a list of dates that images were taken, and you select which ones you want to download. (I realized that the problem with "Today's images" is what do you do if you took a few images AFTER you downloaded yesterday's images. There's no way for ANYONE to know which images were yesterday's images.

Let me finish this with the fact that I do have to deal with what you're dealing with, albeit in a very different structure: I am the Editor of the newsletter for a woodworking club I belong to, and to help even out workloads, one of the other members takes the photos*. He, like you, formats the card when he wants to, not in any formal way. I didn't know this when he started taking photos for the newsletter, and I went ahead and downloaded all the images while I was doing some other tasks and found not only the photos from the last meeting but photos of the previous meeting as well as family photos and his general photos. 

That's when I got into the habit of looking for specific dates of our meeting before downloading images. 

*needless to say, since Covid and our meetings are now on Zoom, this is not an issue.

[nathan_h]

That's interesting.  Well, I guess the file system must be the one renaming the duplicates since they get added to the same folder, with an appended character to indicate that there was already a file with that name.  Maybe the OS doesn't even tell Bridge that "hey, that filename already exists" but rather says "dumb program, that filename exists, and rather than over writing it or throwing an error or prompt I'm just gonna append another character to make it a little different so I can go on my way."

For some reason, I thought it was Bridge doing that logic, and not the OS.  But since Bridge isn't doing that logic, I can see where Bridge couldn't have the altnernate algorithm ("if the filename exists, don't import the file" as a preference/option in the import dialog box).

I realize many people rename files when importing, which complicates things.  And maybe the OS is doing the appending of incremental characters to keep file names unique. And maybe the OS doesn't even bother to tell Bridge that there is a file with the same name already.  So if Bridge is not the one running into the duplicate file name then using that as a key wouldn't be an easy way to have the Bridge software ignore a file whose filename already exists in the location specified.....because it wouldn't know that the OS is handling such conflicts.

I don't know how other OS handle it these days, but the options to when hitting duplicate/conflicting names in Mac OS are "overwrite, add by appending something to the name and keep the original too, or don't copy" which would be an useful thing to be able to set in Bridge, too 😉

[gary_sc]

Yes, it is the Mac OS that's auto-adding the "-2" to the file name.

But if that's the case, that does make it a bit easier to remove the extra ones. Assuming that you're putting these all into the same folder, you can sort by date. If you sort by name, then you do have to Command-click on each "-2," then delete them.

BTW, if you download a file from a website, and then download it again, a "-2" will automatically be added to the 2nd one with no warning that you've already downloaded it. However, if you put that first file into a folder, then try to drag another copy of that file (with NO "-2"), you will get a duplicate file warning. My guess is that the OS is thinking: "Hey! If you want to download this a 2nd time, that's your business." But if you move a duplicate into that folder, then the OS lets you know that the file is already there. I have guesses as to why there is this alternate approach but I do not know for sure.

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