Too many photos to delete repeats

[johngood_____]

For years, I have stored on my pc thousands of digital photographs from my
camera each at maximum file size.

I've copied them back and forth between computers, when I got a new computer
and an external hard drive. Most of them are now on the external hard drive.

Like an idiot when I transferred them here and there, back and forth, so as
not to risk
losing them I always *copied* them to a new place and then didn't bother to
*erase*
the old photos, but just left them. I have windows xp and they are stored in
ordinary windows folders.

Consequently I've got about 30 gigabytes of photos with masses copied
several times. Is there any neat way to delete the repeats? Because there
are thousands, it's not easy to go through them all looking for a photo
thats
been copied several times. Thanks for any advice.

 

[meerkat]

For years, I have stored on my pc thousands of digital photographs from
my
camera each at maximum file size.

I've copied them back and forth between computers, when I got a new
computer
and an external hard drive. Most of them are now on the external hard
drive.

Like an idiot when I transferred them here and there, back and forth, so
as not to risk
losing them I always *copied* them to a new place and then didn't bother
to *erase*
the old photos, but just left them. I have windows xp and they are stored
in ordinary windows folders.

Consequently I've got about 30 gigabytes of photos with masses copied
several times. Is there any neat way to delete the repeats? Because there
are thousands, it's not easy to go through them all looking for a photo
thats
been copied several times. Thanks for any advice.

You could use a Duplicate file finder program, and do
them in small, or folder batches.
Can`t think of any other way with 30 gigs worth.

 

[jrblack10]

For years, I have stored on my pc thousands of digital photographs from my
camera each at maximum file size.

I've copied them back and forth between computers, when I got a new computer
and an external hard drive. Most of them are now on the external hard drive.

Like an idiot when I transferred them here and there, back and forth, so as
not to risk
losing them I always *copied* them to a new place and then didn't bother to
*erase*
the old photos, but just left them. I have windows xp and they are stored in
ordinary windows folders.

Consequently I've got about 30 gigabytes of photos with masses copied
several times. Is there any neat way to delete the repeats? Because there
are thousands, it's not easy to go through them all looking for a photo
thats
been copied several times. Thanks for any advice.

Try a tool Beyond Compare. Great tool for all kind of purposes. You
can compare drives, directories, files... date, time, binary content,
etc.
http://www.scootersoftware.com/

 

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

Consequently I've got about 30 gigabytes of photos with masses copied
several times. Is there any neat way to delete the repeats? Because
there are thousands, it's not easy to go through them all looking for
a photo thats been copied several times. Thanks for any advice.

Got an extra hard drive? Copy all the ones you want to keep (once) to a
new, fresh media. Delete *all* of the old ones.

 

[Guest]

I've used a program called "DoubleChecker" that works well. It will check
multiple folders and show you the exact matches.

GS

 

[Cub]

You could use a Duplicate file finder program, and do
them in small, or folder batches.
Can`t think of any other way with 30 gigs worth.

Watch out ... be careful , most camera's have a similar way of numbering
images. i.e. they may reset the counter after your have deleted them off
your camera so you could end up with multiple imagexxx

 

[Ken Hart]

For years, I have stored on my pc thousands of digital photographs from
my
camera each at maximum file size.

I've copied them back and forth between computers, when I got a new
computer
and an external hard drive. Most of them are now on the external hard
drive.

Like an idiot when I transferred them here and there, back and forth, so
as not to risk
losing them I always *copied* them to a new place and then didn't bother
to *erase*
the old photos, but just left them. I have windows xp and they are stored
in ordinary windows folders.

Consequently I've got about 30 gigabytes of photos with masses copied
several times. Is there any neat way to delete the repeats? Because there
are thousands, it's not easy to go through them all looking for a photo
thats
been copied several times. Thanks for any advice.

Convert them all to film negatives, and shoot film from now on. You won't
have to worry about hard drive failures, technology upgrades. Use the free
space on your hard drives to maintain a database of your photos stored on
film.

 

[Maria]

Search for them by date modified.

Convert them all to film negatives, and shoot film from now on. You won't
have to worry about hard drive failures, technology upgrades. Use the free
space on your hard drives to maintain a database of your photos stored on
film.

 

[Art]

For years, I have stored on my pc thousands of digital photographs from my
camera each at maximum file size.

I've copied them back and forth between computers, when I got a new computer
and an external hard drive. Most of them are now on the external hard drive.

Like an idiot when I transferred them here and there, back and forth, so as
not to risk
losing them I always *copied* them to a new place and then didn't bother to
*erase*
the old photos, but just left them. I have windows xp and they are stored in
ordinary windows folders.

Consequently I've got about 30 gigabytes of photos with masses copied
several times. Is there any neat way to delete the repeats? Because there
are thousands, it's not easy to go through them all looking for a photo
thats
been copied several times. Thanks for any advice.

Assuming the duplicates have the same name - you could just copy them
all into the same directory tree and the duplicates will take care of
themselves. Just answer yes to the file replace question.

 

[Pennywise]

For years, I have stored on my pc thousands of digital photographs from my
camera each at maximum file size.

I've copied them back and forth between computers, when I got a new computer
and an external hard drive. Most of them are now on the external hard drive.

Like an idiot when I transferred them here and there, back and forth, so as
not to risk
losing them I always *copied* them to a new place and then didn't bother to
*erase*
the old photos, but just left them. I have windows xp and they are stored in
ordinary windows folders.

Consequently I've got about 30 gigabytes of photos with masses copied
several times. Is there any neat way to delete the repeats? Because there
are thousands, it's not easy to go through them all looking for a photo
thats
been copied several times. Thanks for any advice.

ACDSee does this very well, and being a photo viewer you can view the
pix to make sure they are the same.

http://www.oldversion.com/program.php?n=acdsee

If you use 3.1 and it doesn't give you a trial period, post back I'll
give you a number, as 3.1 is no longer supported.

 

[WaIIy]

For years, I have stored on my pc thousands of digital photographs from my
camera each at maximum file size.

I've copied them back and forth between computers, when I got a new computer
and an external hard drive. Most of them are now on the external hard drive.

Like an idiot when I transferred them here and there, back and forth, so as
not to risk
losing them I always *copied* them to a new place and then didn't bother to
*erase*
the old photos, but just left them. I have windows xp and they are stored in
ordinary windows folders.

Consequently I've got about 30 gigabytes of photos with masses copied
several times. Is there any neat way to delete the repeats? Because there
are thousands, it's not easy to go through them all looking for a photo
thats
been copied several times. Thanks for any advice.

Try this...

DeDuper:

http://www.niftyprograms.com/deduper.htm

Fast and dead accurate.

 

[ToBeAnnounced]

For years, I have stored on my pc thousands of digital photographs from
my camera each at maximum file size.

I've copied them back and forth between computers, when I got a new
computer and an external hard drive. Most of them are now on the
external hard drive.

Like an idiot when I transferred them here and there, back and forth, so
as not to risk
losing them I always *copied* them to a new place and then didn't bother
to *erase*
the old photos, but just left them. I have windows xp and they are
stored in ordinary windows folders.

Consequently I've got about 30 gigabytes of photos with masses copied
several times. Is there any neat way to delete the repeats? Because
there are thousands, it's not easy to go through them all looking for a
photo thats
been copied several times. Thanks for any advice.

I've tried Check Identical Files 2.12 & am happy to say, it works as
advertised. At least, it did for me.

http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/Utilities/File_Cleanup_Utilities/Check_Identical_Files.html

It was recommended by a kind poster in this group.

 

[Matt]

Got an extra hard drive? Copy all the ones you want to keep (once) to a
new, fresh media. Delete *all* of the old ones.

Q: How do you make a sculpture of an elephant?

A: Get a large block of stone and remove everything that does not look
like and elephant.

 

[mikey likes it]

d'peg program.
a friend has used it for years.
create yourself a pile of folders. put an equal amount of mb into each
folder.
run the program against the first folder.
it'll whittle out the dupes in there.
then do the 2d directory and so on.
when all the directories are done, take 2 folders, join them, and run d'peg
again against it.
the program maintains a database on all the pics as they're done. deletes
pics at a click of a button.
the friend has a 500,000 pic collection, so it must work well.
if you have 'thousands' , i'll assume less than 20,000. the program works
faster if you have a newer system; on an older system it takes longer.
this is /not/ a project that can be done quickly, nor with any of the other
programs noted in this thread.