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How to remove duplicate files and photos on your MacOS? step by step guide

With the passage of time the MacOS computers are storing much more information, which clearly make these work much slower. Especially if you are one of the people who is constantly storing photographs and videos.

You can easily find many duplicate photos on your Mac, which usually be stored under different names. This is usually caused by Backups from the system, so these files end up taking up more storage space.

So if you want to get rid of all the duplicate files and free up space on your Mac, Here we explain step by step how to perform this procedure easily and quickly.

Why should you remove duplicate files?

Why should you remove duplicate files?

The macOS photo mirroring is a real problem for everyone, especially for those users who are constantly transferring photos, editing and saving in the computer. This is because a single edit to a photo is automatically stored as a new one, since the system takes it as a different photo.

In this way, all these duplicate photos that are generated by themselves end up occupying much more storage space, which clearly makes the computer work much slower. In addition, it usually generates a mess on your disk, so many times you won’t even know that you have so many copies of the same image stored. delete all these duplicate files It will help you keep your team more organized and above all you will be able to save GB of space, so your team will work in a better way.

Learn how to remove duplicate photos and files from your macOS

If you want to start getting rid of all those duplicate files on your Mac and so on free up memory spacethen here we explain the different methods that you can apply for it.

For this, follow in detail everything that we will teach you below:

From Photos

A form of being able to remove all duplicate files is directly from the Photos appsince the app automatically detects all the images duplicates. Duplicate files are usually generated the same day the original is uploaded, so in this case we can sort these files by date and thus facilitate the search and removal of them.

To do this, follow each of the steps that we mention below:

  • The first thing will be to enter the application “Photos” from your macOS.
  • Next you will have to click on “Archive” and then select “new smart album”.
  • Now from the pop-up window you will have to establish the search criteria and then choose a “Smart album name”.

From Photos

  • The next thing will be to select all the duplicate images in your gallery. Once this is done, press the “Control” and click on any of the selected photos and then click on “Delete”.
  • A new pop-up window will open where you must confirm this action by selecting the “Delete”.

From Photos

  • Later, you will have to select in the sidebar the item “recently deleted” and click “delete all” located in the upper right corner of your screen. With this you will guarantee that all the deleted photos are not stored for another 30 days in the Photos app.

From Photos

  • Finally, all the smart albums that you create within Photos will be saved in the app’s sidebar. Therefore, there you will be able to access them again to clean them from time to time and avoid the accumulation of these duplicate files.

With the file browser

Is there another way to find and delete all the duplicate photos on your Mac, this must be done manually with the file browser. So it’s a bit of a tedious process, but it will help you get out of all these files that just take up memory.

To do this, follow each of these steps:

  • To start this process you will need to enter the “Finder”.
  • Next, at the top you will find a menu of options, there you must select “Archive” and then in the drop-down menu click on the “new smart folder”.

With the file browser

  • Here a new folder will appear on the screen. There you will have to select the “+” sign located in the upper right corner to filter the search.
  • There you will be able to modify the search options such as “Class”, “Image”, you can also select the type of image format by selecting the option of “All”.

With the file browser

  • Lastly, you must select all duplicate files and click on the item of “Move to Trash” to remove them.

With the file browser

Other actions you should do to optimize your MacOS

The optimal functioning of a computer is very importantwhich is why on many occasions it is not enough to just delete duplicate photos, but you also have to constantly perform other actions that will help your Mac work much faster.

Which we show you below:

Delete temporary files

Delete temporary files

Temporary files are those programs that are used to improve computer processes, either when browsing the web or using certain installed applications at Mac. Its main function is to install certain programs on the computer to obtain information from us, among others.

However, at the time of remove temporary files we managed to prevent third parties from obtaining our data. In addition, having a lot of data saved in the temporary folder as he processor as the RAM they work more demanding, so by emptying all this we will get more space and our computer will work better.

Delete old documents and files

Delete old documents and files

On many occasions, users tend to save old files or documents that with the passage of time lose their value or importance, so they only come to occupy RAM within the team. That is why a good alternative to have the computer better optimized is to get rid of all of them.

For this make sure you look for each of the documents or files that you no longer use and delete them. Perform this procedure at least every 90 days to make sure free up space and that your team works much faster.

Uninstall unused programs

Uninstall unused programs

Another way to free up space and improve the performance of your unit is by removing all those programs that you no longer use. Please note that this may cause your storage unit fill up quickly and make your Mac run much slower. In general, they are usually install programs that are only used once and that they forget to delete, so it is time to review and get rid of everything that you do not use and that only takes up space.

Delete the languages ​​you don’t use

Delete the languages ​​you don

By factory default, the Mac devices They usually include a language pack that is always active and that in the end they only occupy space and RAM. Therefore, to eliminate this data that we do not use, we recommend using programs such as xslimmer, which will allow you to free up space on your Mac.