Duplicate Photos

I just restored my pictures directory from my backup onto my new Ubuntu 13.04 installation.  It is almost 50G!  The sad part is that I know there are many duplicate pictures in the directory for various reasons.

So, I decided to go on a trek to see if I could get rid of the duplicates.  Here’s my explore:

Options

Thankfully, a great article from Ask Ubuntu  came to the rescue.  Here’s the list of programs that it suggested:

I picked Geegie because it was a GUI tool that looked easy to use.  I like the fact that it will recursively add a folder and it’s contents.  Also, it was in the Software Center.

Installing

It was easy to install via the Software Center.

Installing Geeqie

Once installed, I launched it with no problem from the menu.

Finding Duplicates

After installing and opening Geegie, I opened the Find Duplicates tool.  It was on the menu: “File > File duplicates…”.  Then, I drug my Pictures folder over to the duplicates tool.

Dragging Pictures Folder over

When I dropped it, the program prompted me to pick what I wanted to do.  I picked the recursive option to get all of the subfolders.

Geegie folders context menu

It took it a while, but it finally showed me a list of files.

Duplicate images

Compare Method

At first, the tool was using the “Name” compare method.  For me, that was showing too many wrong matches.  So, I changed it to the “CheckSum” method.  That showed me about 30 matches or so.  I was able to delete the duplicates right from the tool.  Next, I chose the “Similarity (high)” option.

You can change the method with the drop down at the bottom of the tool.  Be care though when you pick the option.  It will take it some time to do the compare, and it does it as soon as you pick it with no choice to cancel that I can see.

Changing Geeqie the compare method

Resources

Ask Ubuntu: How can I find duplicate photos?

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