Anyone used SysTools Duplicate Finder? How safe is it for photo libraries?

[Rachel_Vinx0030]

If I let the app delete what it finds, what happens to the links in Photoshop Elements? Will the catalog lose track of those images, or will I have to manually reconnect everything? I’ve spent a long time organizing and tagging photos, so I don’t want to mess anything up.

If you’ve used it, did it delete just from the hard drive, or did it also affect your catalog? I want to clean things up, but I’m worried about breaking the connections.

[Greg_S.]

If you are only concerned with eliminating duplicate files, you can use an outside Organizer program to perform the task by deleting them from your hard drive.  Once you have done that, you can use the Find>All Missing Files command in the Organizer.  The grid will display all files that have been deleted from the hard drive.  You can select all the visible missing files (Ctrl+A) and delete them from the catalog.

For safety's sake, you should perhaps also Find>All Missing Files before using the third party program to delete the duplicates.  That will ensure that when you use that command after deleting the duplicates, you will only be removing the newly deleted files.  Alternatively, don't use the option to delete files from the hard drive when using the Organizer's delete from catalog command.