• Global community
    • Language:
      • Deutsch
      • English
      • Español
      • Français
      • Português
  • 日本語コミュニティ
    Dedicated community for Japanese speakers
  • 한국 커뮤니티
    Dedicated community for Korean speakers
Exit
0

Deleting Duplicates

New Here ,
Mar 13, 2020 Mar 13, 2020

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I did a search for duplicates with PSE2020 on a windows 10 laptop. Several hundreds of duplicates showed up on a grid showing a percentage for each. How do I now delete the duplictes and leave the original in the catalog?

TOPICS
Actions

Views

357

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Mar 13, 2020 Mar 13, 2020

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Which search tool did you use?  Are you talking about a find by visual similarity?

In any event, you should be able to select the "duplicates" and press the delete key to delete the files from the catalog.  (You will be asked to confirm whether you also want to delete the files from your computer.)

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Mar 30, 2020 Mar 30, 2020

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I thought I was asking a simple question but have not received the solution. I have used PSE10 for a number of years. I recently upgraded to PSE2020. One of the main reason was because I read that PSE2020 can find and delete duplicates. I have several thousand duplicates. I used PSE2020 to find duplicates and a screen came up showing a large number of duplicates. I wanted to delete them but nowhere on the screen did it show how to delete them. I thought there might be a button saying "Click here to delete" or something like that but there was nothing. I tried using anything I could think of but nothing worked. All I want to know is once that I have found the duplicates how do I get rid of them.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Mar 30, 2020 Mar 30, 2020

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

In the online help:

https://helpx.adobe.com/elements-organizer/using/search-based-visual-uniqueness.html

The feature offered by the organizer is based on 'visual similarity', that is by searching which files 'match' visually. The percentage you see indicates how similar the files are. As suggested by the resulting search list, you have a button to stack or not the suggested . The above help doc is a bit short, but it shows that the process is not what you expect: you can't skip the tasks:

1 - to check the proposal and select the correct 'matches'

2 - to stack your choices, which solves a part of the problem of duplicates: when browsing, you only see one thumbnail

3 - to decide the criteria to find which item to keep or delete. A big issue that even advanced external duplicate finders can't really do for you: based on date, size, visual quality, richness of tags and info in the catalog...

4 - The usual way when you have found the best item in the stack is to 'flatten' the stack, which only keeps the best and deletes the other (from catalog and from disk if you choose so). This is not very realistic for a big library of 100 000 items!

 

One big issue is that duplicates are not found based on file name. With digital cameras, you may have many duplicate names for different pictures.

You might try external duplicate finders (some are free or affordable), but you'll still have the task of deciding the criteria for deletion. If you delete files externally, the catalog will show many 'missing' files and you'll have to select them and remove them from the catalog, which takes time.

 

That does not mean the visual search of PSE is useless. It works very well in certain circumstances. For instance, you import a folder with version sets or stacks created in another catalog. The only way to re-stack them is to search for visual similarity. That works well to stack the original raw file with its edited, cropped version.

 

My other advice for a big library is to consider if it's worth trying to delete duplicates to be proud of a 'clean' look in the Explorer. I have many old scans of family shots taken by many relatives. I am happy to have them stacked and I don't care for the small waste in drive space. 

 

The real reason to start finding duplicates is to find why you have them and to avoid creating new ones.

 

 

 

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Jan 02, 2023 Jan 02, 2023

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Hello.  I have used this, but to my knowledge (could be wrong), the visual similarity results do not show file size. I'd like to especially delete low-resolution copies of the original. Anyway to see file size info as part of the search results?  THanks for considering.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Jan 02, 2023 Jan 02, 2023

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

@charlesm45872822 said: to my knowledge (could be wrong), the visual similarity results do not show file size. I'd like to especially delete low-resolution copies of the original. Anyway to see file size info as part of the search results?

Charles, if you hover over a thumbnail in the search results, the file size is included in a pop-up.

Snap_2023.01.02_19h9m33s_005.png

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Jan 02, 2023 Jan 02, 2023

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

LATEST
Hi. Thanks for the reply. I just did a visual similarity search and hovered
my mouse, but i didn't see any pop-up. (Im on latest windows version. with
a 6-month-old desktop)

And, frankly, that's not all that great, (unless, when hovering, file size
shows up for *all* displayed thumbnails on the screen) .

The key need for me is to be able to select a group of files for deletion
(after the similarity search results are shown). A key need is to see,
displayed, files sizes for all thumbnails (i.e. files). That is needed to
male decisions on the files to be deleted. I'm a bit old and could die
before completing this work.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines