elements organizer shows two copies of each photo from my iPhone when downloading

[GatorEric]

I'm using Photoshop Elements 19.0 on Windows 10 and an iPhone 7. 

I click Import from Camera and then Get Photos from Apple iPhone.  After a moment, it finishes scanning the photos on my phone and displays thumbnails in the Photo Downloader window.  For almost every photo on my phone, I see two copies in the downloader window -- same filename, same date, same size, same thumbnail.  

Why?  How do I fix this?  It is a huge pain to have to manually clean up the duplicates that Photoshop Elements is creating.

Thanks.

[Greg_S. · Accepted solution]

Yes, this can be a huge annoyance.  If you click on the Select Folders icon, a dialog with a folder tree of your iPhone should open.  Do you see two DCIM folders similar to those shown in my screenshot? If you expand both folders, you will probably see identical sub-folders.  (My screenshot shows only one of the folders expanded.)  If you uncheck one of the DCIM folder boxes and click the Browse button, the Photo Downloader should only display (and import) one of each photo.  As far as I am aware, you are the only other person besides me who has reported this issue.  I would appreciate you confirming that you are seeing the same duplicate folder tree as I am.  It will help me report the bug to Adobe.

BTW, to help clean up the duplicates, you may be able to do the following:

The duplicate photos probably have a suffix of -1.  You can do a search for file names in the Organizer by pressing Shift+Ctrl+K.  In the search box, type -1.  You can then select all of the found files and delete them with one command.  (If you sort by Import batch, this will help confirm that the search results are duplicates of the files you have just imported from the phone.)

[GatorEric]

Thank you, Greg! 

That is exactly the problem I am also having.  When I select only one of the DCIM folders, then I get only one of each photo. Now, at least I can work around the problem until there's a fix.

Eric

[MichelBParis]

Hi Greg and @GatorEric ,

It's not a specific iPhone issue, the downloader also shows different locations for the DCIM subfolder on my S8 Android. I don't get imported duplicates; however that's probably because I have chosen alternative ways of getting the files:

- either by copying them to Dropbox and importing them from there (no risk of cable issues)

- for my wife's S7, she stores her pictures on Google Photo from where I download (no cable either)

- from Explorer download. Plugging the camera opens the S8 device as any external drive and I can select my import batch much faster than using the downloader. The downloader always tries to select and check all 6000 pictures in my DCIM folder! I am losing the ability of the downloader to automatically create date based subfolders in the target directory. So, I use the Explorer to select the most recent pictures and to copy them to a thumbstick or a card in a cardreader. I can 'get them' from camera and card reader which creates the correct destination subfolders with the right day as a subfolder name.

[maroon hills]

I'm having the same problem with my Fuji XE4 and PE 23. Is it not possible to fix this with a firmware update?

[Greg_S.]

Thanks for confirming this issue.  I no longer feel so alone. 

[LetsdoLunch]

It's not just phones - I was having this issue with my Nikon D90.  Thanks for the help!

[Arndt Jon]

Late reply here, but I had the same problem - the downloader window showed 2 copies of each image; duplicate files were saved when I downloaded the images, for example, IMG_XXXX.CR2 and IMG_XXXX-1.CR2. 

I confirmed my camera was producing one image per shutter activation.  I checked the file structure as indicated by Greg S.'s reply and found the same setup (see screen shot below).  

This behavior started with files imported after 30-July-2023; my prior import was 27-May-2023. 

No help requested on my end, but hopefully the information can be use to Adobe.

Setup:

PSE 2022

Windows 11

Canon EOS 30D