How to Clean Up Duplicate Photos in Lightroom

This guide will give you the easiest ways to clean up duplicate photos in Lightroom.

I’ve been using Adobe Lightroom for many years, and removing duplicates is a necessary part of maintaining my catalog of images.

Removing duplicate photos in Lightroom helps you keep an organised editing space and smooth workflow.

The recent Adobe MAX Update 2024 introduces further workflow management and editing options.

Generative Remove has received a significant update to make it easy to identify an unwanted distraction, circle it, cleanly remove the item, and correctly render the vacant space.

Let’s dive into the tutorial.

How to Clean Up Duplicate Photos in Lightroom

After working in Lightroom for a while, you’ll notice that the catalog has begun producing doppelgangers of your images.

Often, there are not just two but three and, in rare cases, four or more versions of the same image.

Duplicate images can make navigating Lightroom confusing and time-consuming. For one, you will have to work out which photo contains your latest edits.

Cleaning up double photos is well worth it, as an organized catalog will positively affect your workflow.

Plus, as an additional bonus, it will cut down on the catalog storage size.

Luckily, they are easy enough to clean up when you put your mind to it.

• More: How to Organize Lightroom Photos More Efficiently

Removing Duplicates

The first step to deleting duplicate files is locating them.

Unfortunately, Lightroom does not offer a built-in function to locate duplicate files, even though you would imagine that it would be easy to incorporate.

Possibly, Adobe doesn’t want to be responsible for unhappy clients who delete the wrong files and then request that Lightroom relocate them.

Whatever the reason, we can follow these steps instead.

Step 1 – Create Backups

Before you start, it’s worth making a backup file of your entire catalog.

It’s only human to make an error, and we don’t want anyone to delete and lose precious photos.

Step 2 – Locate Duplicate Photos

The best way to locate duplicates is by using a plugin.

You can locate them manually, but it can be time-consuming, especially if your catalog is large.

Option 1 -Locate Duplicate Photos Manually

Hunting down all the photo duplicates manually in Lightroom could take a fair chunk of time.

Particularly when your catalog escalates into the thousands (the most common time for duplicates to appear.)

However, if this is the way you want to remove extra files, you can do so.

The best way to quickly scan for duplicates is to organize the photos in a Capture Time search.

To do this, head to the main menu bar and select View.

From the drop-down menu, select Sort > Capture Time.

The library will now organize and display the photos depending on the time they were captured.

This means that duplicate photos will be displayed side by side, as they were taken at exactly the same time.

• More: How to Use Lightroom Collections to Your Advantage

Option 2 – Locate Duplicate Photos Using a Plugin

The best way to save time and avoid scanning through your entire catalog collection for duplicates is to use an external plugin.

(There are many to choose from. Check out this guide to some of the best duplicate photo finders.)

To install the plug-in, you must first download the plug-in’s Zip folder.

Once downloaded, double-click on the Zip folder to open the plug-in.

Open the plug-in in Lightroom and store it in the plug-in folder.

The plug-in can search for duplicates in one folder, a collection, or the entire Lightroom library.

To search the entire library, click the arrow beside Catalog on the left-hand side of the canvas workspace.

The Catalog panel will drop down; click on the first folder, All Photographs, to open it.

When the All Photographs folder is open, head to the main menu bar and select Library.

From the drop-down menu, select Plug-in Extras> Find Duplicates.

The plug-in will now begin to scan Lightroom for duplicates.

This can take some time, depending on how large your catalog is.

The plug-in will locate duplicate files, but it will not delete them.

Now that the plug-in has located the duplicate files, it’s a good idea to view them before bulk deleting them.

Step 3 – Check the Collection of Duplicate Files

When the plug-in has located all the duplicate files, it will create a collection of them.

Head to this collection, and you can scan through the duplicate files side-by-side.

The plug-in will select only one version of the photo to keep and mark any replicate files to be rejected.

However, you can not rely on the plug-in to make the correct decision about which file to keep and which to delete.

Instead, you need to review the plug-in collection to determine whether there are any images you wish to keep or reject.

Check that the photo the plug-in selects to keep is the highest-resolution file, such as a RAW file.

You don’t want to delete a superior file and keep the low-quality one.

Also, check that the file selected to keep is locatable and not a just ghost thumbnail. You definitely do not want to keep an empty thumbnail that is not attached to an actual file.

When a photo has an exclamation mark in the top right corner of its thumbnail, it is a ‘ghost’ thumbnail.

In the image below, you can see that the low-quality thumbnails (images with an exclamation mark in the top right-hand corner) were selected to be deleted by the plug-in.

Click U if you wish to keep a photo that is marked as rejected. Alternatively, click X if there is a file you wish to delete.

You want to keep the photos that contain the Lightroom edits, so ensure that the photo you are deleting is not the file with the edits.

Alternatively, copy the edits onto the file you wish to keep (possibly because it is a higher resolution). To copy edits, copy the photo’s metadata.

Step 4 – Delete Duplicates

Now for the fun bit: deleting all the duplicates.

To do this, select the collection, All Photographs, in the Catalog panel.

Then head to the main menu and select Photo > Delete Rejected Photos.

A dialogue window will pop up.

Decide if you wish to delete the duplicates from the Lightroom catalog and your disk or if you only want to remove them from Lightroom.

Click the appropriate button.

Congratulations – your duplicates will now be deleted from your catalog.

• More: How to Delete Photos From Lightroom

Reasons for Duplicates

Duplicate photos appear in the Lightroom catalog for different reasons; knowing why it happens will help you avoid it happening in the future.

One reason an extra version is created is when an image is renamed, moved, or given a new extension name.

When the same photo has different file names, for instance, jpg or jpeg, Lightroom will consider them to be individual photos.

You may have unknowingly added the same photo to different catalogs; thus, merging catalogs will result in duplicates.

When merging catalogs, Lightroom does not consolidate duplicate images into one image. If it did, you would run the risk of losing the edits you made to each image.

Instead, Lightroom will leave duplicate photos as separate files.

Another reason a duplicate might appear in the Lightroom library is if you move a photo that is open in Lightroom.

When a photo is moved from its original location, the Lightroom library thumbnail will no longer be linked to the original photo.

This means Lightroom will be unable to locate the photo.

Even though Lightroom can no longer locate the image, the dysfunctional thumbnail will not be deleted but will remain in Lightroom’s library.

This thumbnail is like a ghost; it can display a low-resolution version of the photo, but locating or opening the file will not be possible.

When you move a folder containing a photo open in Lightroom to a new location and return to Lightroom to reopen it from this new location, a duplicate will be created.

Avoid Future Duplicates

Now that you know how Lightroom stores and creates doppelgangers, you can avoid future duplicates.

The first step is to always tick the box beside Don’t Import Suspected Duplicates when importing photos.

You will find this in the File Handling panel on the right-hand side of your canvas workspace.

Another way to avoid creating duplicates is to remember never to change a file’s name.

Understandably, you might want to rename a photo to something that identifies it with its project. Plus, the numerical name the camera gives images, such as IMG_4776.jpeg, is far from inspiring.

The problem is that when you rename an image, Lightroom considers it to be a fresh file, separate from the original file.

Avoid duplicates by always storing your photos in one place.

This might be a folder on your desktop, an external hard drive, iCloud, or another similar location.

If you store the same image in a desktop folder, on your hard drive, or in the cloud, you risk accidentally opening it again.

Let’s admit it: When you work with thousands of photos, you can’t remember if you’ve opened an image.

Lightroom remembers where the image is stored as an identifying feature. When the file is stored in duplicate places, Lightroom will treat it as a new file.

Keeping your images under tight reigns and in a smart organizational workflow will save you oodles of time.

We hope you enjoyed and found this tutorial useful.

You will no longer need to plow through pages of duplicate images to locate the image you wish to edit.

If you’d like to learn more, why not check out – How to Maximize Your Lightroom Cloud Storage.

FAQ

How do I get rid of duplicate photos in Lightroom?

It’s not uncommon for doubles of photos to appear in Lightroom.

To delete duplicate photos, start by selecting the duplicates in Lightroom’s Library.

Then head to the main menu bar and click Photos. From the drop-down menu, select Remove Photo From Catalog.

What is the best duplicate finder in Lightroom?

Lightroom does not have a duplicate photo finder, so you must use an external plug-in.

There are a few plugins competing for the spot as the ‘best’ duplicate finder.

Three of the top trustworthy duplicate finders are Cisdem Duplicate Finder, VSDIF and Teekeselchen.

How do I bulk delete duplicate photos?

You can use a plug-in to locate duplicate photos easily so you can delete them in bulk.

If you wish to locate duplicates manually, you can organise the Lightroom catalogue using Capture Time. This way, you can view all duplicates side by side.

When the duplicates are selected, select Photos > Delete Rejected Photos.

What is the shortcut for duplicate photos in Lightroom?

If you wish to create a duplicate of a photo in Lightroom, first select the photo.

Now right-click using your mouse, and from the menu, select Create Virtual Copy.

Alternatively, you can use the keyboard shortcut: Hold Command (for Macs) or Ctrl (for Windows) and hit the ‘ key.