dyximan

I have a 2016 Apple iMac and Using Mojave, I have 3 external hard drives #1=2TB=40,000 photos both raw and Jpeg #2=4TD=120,000 photos both raw and jpeg and #3+4TB 160,000 photos both raw and jpeg My questions are as follows
I recantly received information that Apple can now search and identify dupicates on a single drive.
I moved all photos to #4 10TB Drive but all photos were put into individual file folders hence folder year then Folder month then Folder day then Folders for each individual photo some 160,000 plus. But no Thumb nails or anyway to see the photos without opening each individual folder. Yet the the photos on each Individual smaller drives are visible as thumbnails and or full size.
My question is this, is there any way to get the photos on the 10TB to be seen as thumbnail photos and not just dated blue folders. As you can imagine I dont want to open each and every folder to see what the photo is inside.
And is there a way to scan for any and all duplicates and eleimante all copies.
That being said I am looking for answers of yes or no and solutions only, your thougts and opinions altough nice, do and can not resolve the issue at at hand, and I would appreciate it if you would keep them to yourself. I know I have a lot of photos and that I should and or could have edited them as I uploaded them over the years but I did not. So again solution only.
I want to thank all of yo in advance for your help in this matter,

UTMike Loc: South Jordan, UT

This is very much like my setup. I will be interested in the replies.

rlv567 Loc: Baguio City, Philippines

Here are some programs you can look up on Google. If I remember correctly, all are free, but I don’t know whether they will work on Apple computers: dupeGuru, Duplicate Files Finder, Duplicate Photo Cleaner, Duplicate Photo Finder, Duplicate Cleaner, Easy Duplicate Finder and Find Same Image. My preference, which I used several times quite successfully on several hundred thousand files, was Find.Same.Images.OK –

https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/find_same_images_ok.html

This software is capable of comparing images in a number of ways, to different percentages of sameness, and is fast. Again, I believe it to be the best available, and it’s free.

Loren – in Beautiful Baguio

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

An operating system cannot have two files with the same name on a drive in the same folder, that’s why your Move created all those folders to differentiate the duplicate names. If two folders contain copies of the same photos with the same file names, then just delete one of the folders. Maybe I’m misunderstanding your post.

clemente21

These are some leads for what you are looking to do. One is free, the other one is not. I don't know anything about them as I don't have an Apple. They just showed up on a Google search. Perhaps one of them will work for you.


https://www.easyduplicatefinder.com/clean-and-remove-duplicate-files.html?tag=adword_edf&crtag=adwords&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIkKiq05XQ4wIVAdvACh1u3wooEAAYAyAAEgKgFPD_BwE

https://gemini.macpaw.com/5?campaign=search_text_gemini_duplicate_finder_osx_en&ci=895101964&adgroupid=43523168326&adpos=1t1&ck=os%20x%20duplicate%20file%20finder&targetid=kwd-369041819717&match=e&gnetwork=g&creative=242408689805&placement=&placecat=&accname=gemini&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIsvPZ_ZTQ4wIVDL7ACh2EiwHBEAAYASAAEgLl1_D_BwE

https://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac/find-delete-duplicate-files-mac-3679414/

dyximan

Thank you that makes sense, As I have numerous files with the same number because my camera starts over after every 999 shots. But my other question is how can I turn those individual Photo files into an image that I can see without opening each and every one of the 160000 + to see what it is, basically convert them to thumbnails.

rlv567 Loc: Baguio City, Philippines

The one I used the most - Find.Same.Images.OK - will let you see the files in question. Try it; it really worked very well for me, though it has been some time since I had reason to use it.

Loren - in Beautiful Baguio City

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

You might want to call Apple and have someone walk you through it. I have a Windows PC. I navigate to a folder and can view thumbnails at various sizes no problem. But you have to open th folder where the files are.

Machinedoc Loc: Yorktown Heights, NY

I use Disk Drill (free version) on my Macs and I think it works very well. That being said, I very carefully look at each of the files it identifies to make sure that they really are dupes before I delete anything. It will identify and delete dupes automatically if you dare.

dyximan

I want to thank all of you for your replies regarding the duplicate tion question. I am going to assume that no one knows how to turn the file folders into thumbnails as I've yet to receive an answer to that question

jethro779 Loc: Tucson, AZ

It doesn't matter that no one has a way to turn a file folder into several thumbnails. My iMac does not provide thumbnails on file folders. As far as I can tell the only way to see thumbnails in my photo files is to open them first.

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

I don’t think that the OP is clear on that. If files are in a folder, then you have to open the folder before you can look at the files. Apple and Windows do it the same way. I would suggest that he do a little studying on how operating systems organize files onto drives and folders and sub folders.

jrm21

Where were you seeing thumbnails? In a Finder window? It's not clear to me where/how you expect to see thumbnails.

When a Finder window is set to "icon" view, images will appear as thumbnails. Folders, however, will appear as the "blue folders" you are seeing. It isn't logical to expect a folder icon to be a thumbnail of all its contents. There is no reason the files should look different on one drive vs another. Check your view preferences for the window on the new drive (make window active and press CMD-J on the keyboard).

While I'm not sure if it is exactly what you are looking for, here is one idea that may help...



1. Double-click on the icon for the drive you want to search.
2. When the window opens, type "CMD-F" (for "find").

the window will change. Near the top will be "Search: This Mac "Drive Name" Shared"
3. Click on the drive name to limit the search to that drive. (Name will be highlighted).
4. Under that will be some drop-down menus. It will probably read "Kind is Any"
Leave "Kind" (or change to "Kind" is its not already selected)
5. Change "any" to "other" - that will open a text filed to the right.
6. In the text field, type "jpeg"

The window will not show all JPEG files on that drive. You will not see any folders - only jpegs will appear in the window, regardless of the folder they are in. You can set the window to "icon" view and change the size to make the thumbnails larger or smaller. A single-click on any file will reveal the location of that file in a line near the bottom of the window.

You can do the same with your RAW files. Instead of a JPEG search, type the extension of your RAW file instead. For example, my Sony files have are all .ARW - so I type ARW after "Kind is Other"


You can add other conditions to the search field (click the small "+" at the right of the conditions area). You can even search on photography Metadata such as focal length. Things like "all RAW files after a certain date." It's also possible to show all RAW and JPEGS in the same search, but this is a little more complicated (need to option-click the + sign).

Finally, you can save the search. This will create a folder icon that you can click to show the same results in the future.

Note that you can do the above search process to search across multiple drives. No reason to copy everything to one place. Software duplicate solutions, however, typically require files to be on one drive.

Hope this helps.


On duplicate photos, I have used "Duplicate File Finder" from Nektony.com. It helped me get rid of several duplicate photos a few years back. Manual duplicate searching can make you crazy with >10,000 photos. I can't imagine tackling the task with >100k photos. Find yourself software to help.

dyximan

That aside perhaps someone could tell me why then I am able to see my images as thumbnails on the 2 and 4 TB drives and not the 10TB where I had transfered all of the files to from the other smaller drives.

jrm21

Have you tried any of the suggestions in the above post?

A folder cannot display thumbnails of its contents. On the 2/4TB drives, which file is the folder displaying a thumbnail for? How would it decide which of the hundreds or thousands of enclosed flies to use for a thumbnail?

The only way a folder will display a "thumbnail" is if you pasted a custom icon on it. I doubt that's what you want to do, but if so, instructions are here:

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/create-custom-icons-files-folders-mac-mchlp2313/mac


Assuming that it is your FILES (not folders) that no longer show thumbnails, then your solution is (as mentioned in the prior post) in the window's view preferences. Select the window and type "CMD-J." That will open a small preferences box. In that box, click the "Show Icon Preview" box. If it's already selected, toggle it off then on.