Duplicates Cleanup Question

[Wow]

Previous to Imatch I've never found a photo org tool I liked and as a result am one of those people that have thousands of duplicate photos spread all over the place. I would like to use Imatch to clean them up. It has automatically identified them under the Duplicates category. However even after reading the help section I am a little lost. What I need to see at a glance is what (Windows) folders the duplicates are in. That way I could quickly determine which ones I want to delete. How would I do this?

Also, I assume that just deleting every file under duplicates would be a disaster? Insofar as I assume it is putting all duplicates there, so I would be deleting both the "original" and the "duplicate/s". Is that correct?

Lastly, I am sure that in many instances I have duplicates in the same (Windows) folder. In that instance I don't need to do any comparing, and would just like to quickly delete all duplicate files within the same Windows folder. Is that possible as a batch command? I see that if have a folder selected and use the filter panel I can select "duplicates" and it will instantly mark all the duplicates with a red line. Related to the question above, can I just delete every photo with a red line? Or would that be deleting both the original and copie/s?

Also, how would I sort them to the duplicates are next to each other?

Lots of interrelated questions here, I suspect that once I grasp the overall concept of how Imatch handles this it will all suddenly make sense.

Thanks

[thrinn]

What I need to see at a glance is what (Windows) folders the duplicates are in. That way I could quickly determine which ones I want to delete. How would I do this?

An easy way is to use a File Window Layout showing the folder. The Simple Layout Editor offers "Path" as one of its standard items which shows the complete Windows path of the file.

Also, I assume that just deleting every file under duplicates would be a disaster? Insofar as I assume it is putting all duplicates there, so I would be deleting both the "original" and the "duplicate/s". Is that correct?

Yes, that is correct. But you can use another functionality instead which is described here: Search > Duplicates opens a Result Window with the duplicates found (instead of assigning them to a category). If you use Ctrl-A in this result window, only duplicates are selected, not the "original". What IMatch assumes to be the "orginal" depends on the scope you started this command on: Let's assume you have a main picture folder like C:\MyPictures with files A.jpg and B.jpg, and these files have duplicates in C:\TEMP\IMPORT. If you select A and B in your main folder and run Search > Duplicates, IMatch will use these as originals and interpred the copies in C:\TEMP\IMPORT as duplicates.

[thrinn]

Lastly, I am sure that in many instances I have duplicates in the same (Windows) folder. In that instance I don't need to do any comparing, and would just like to quickly delete all duplicate files within the same Windows folder. Is that possible as a batch command? I see that if have a folder selected and use the filter panel I can select "duplicates" and it will instantly mark all the duplicates with a red line. Related to the question above, can I just delete every photo with a red line? Or would that be deleting both the original and copie/s?

I think this use case is exactly what is described here as A Special Case: Originals Which are also Matches.

And for your last question,

Also, how would I sort them to the duplicates are next to each other?

the answer can be found here.

And, by the way, a Happy New Year!

[Mario]

Insofar as I assume it is putting all duplicates there, so I would be deleting both the "original" and the "duplicate/s". Is that correct?

Not necessarily. If you did a normal index process during which IMatch found two identical files A and B, only one of the files (the file indexed later) will be marked as a duplicate. Say, B.
If you now later force rescan folders, to bring in files as "fresh" files, and A is rescanned that way, IMatch will detect that there is already an identical file (B) and mark A as well.

What I need to see at a glance is what (Windows) folders the duplicates are in. That way I could quickly determine which ones I want to delete. How would I do this?

As thrinn said, you can change the file Window layout to display the full folder name. Also, selecting a file and clicking Ctrl+G opens the corresponding folder in your database. Then you can check it, delete or whatever you want do do with it.

[Wow]

Thank you thrinn and Mario! Time to clean up some photos!