Fastest way to cull in Apple Photos app?

[Mike Boreham]

My Photos lib has 80,000 pics covering photos and scans back to 1850.

I know that there are many photos where my wife and/or I took several in the same situation so we have many near duplicates.

I want to start culling all the second best pics. The faster way I have found so far is:

1. Create a keyword "Reject" with short cut "r"
2. With Keyword Manager open, advance through photos using right arrow.
3. Tap "r" for second best.
4. Filter for Rejects
5. Delete Rejects

Questions:
Is there any other way?
Is there a better different way in iPadOS?
It seems to be necessary for Keyword Manager to be open. This seems a bit surprising but if it isn't, the "reject" keyword does not get added by tapping "r".
Is there a third party app which would be faster? (Raw Power?)

Thanks very much for any help.

 

[Slartibart]

Starting with iOS/iPadOS 16, the Photos app detects duplicate photos and videos in your photo library and places them in the »Duplicates« album under the »Utilities« section. This is an automatic process. You can then merge duplicates to keep the highest resolution and all metadata.


For cleaning out photos you do not want to keep, connecting a keyboard and using RAWPower on the iPad to classify and delete might be faster (?):

Open RAWPower, select the first picture in the library, open the RAW Power »Info«-panel and use e.g. »reject«, »one star«, etc. to classify. RAWPower will automatically add these photos to a new »Rejected«, »one star«, etc.-album.
If you have a (bluetooth) keyboard connected to your iPad, you can just the arrow keys to change between photos, pressing »r« on the keyboard will put the actual photo into the »Rejected«-album.
RAWPower provides several keyboard shortcuts (for opening the info-, edit-panel, flag photos, etc. - press and hold the command key in RAWPower to open an overview-overlay.)

Finally open Apple Photos and permanently delete e.g. all rejected photos.

 

[Mike Boreham]

Starting with iOS/iPadOS 16, the Photos app detects duplicate photos and videos in your photo library and places them in the »Duplicates« album under the »Utilities« section. This is an automatic process. You can then merge duplicates to keep the highest resolution and all metadata.


For cleaning out photos you do not want to keep, connecting a keyboard and using RAWPower on the iPad to classify and delete might be faster (?):

Open RAWPower, select the first picture in the library, open the RAW Power »Info«-panel and use e.g. »reject«, »one star«, etc. to classify. RAWPower will automatically add these photos to a new »Rejected«, »one star«, etc.-album.
If you have a (bluetooth) keyboard connected to your iPad, you can just the arrow keys to change between photos, pressing »r« on the keyboard will put the actual photo into the »Rejected«-album.
RAWPower provides several keyboard shortcuts (for opening the info-, edit-panel, flag photos, etc. - press and hold the command key in RAWPower to open an overview-overlay.)

Finally open Apple Photos and permanently delete e.g. all rejected photos.

thanks very much.
I know about the new duplicates feature and that has removed a lot. It is now about the near duplicates. I have a 5th Gen 12.9 iPad with Magic Keyboard so will give Raw Power a go.

 

[Ray2]

I’d start with backing up the library and any referenced folders to an external and doing your work on the copied version.

If you use albums, ask yourself if you care about any photos not in albums. If not, build a smart album to gather these, give them a glance and delete much of your task.

Then get a good duplicates culler. I use Photosweeper. Having used others, extremely pleased with it. If interested ask for my settings, Mac is not with me at the moment. Suggest avoiding any apps in reviews with buy-me links. My experience is they are rated based on money to the site rather than functionality to the user.

Next I’d get a browser that can read Photos' library and cull from there. Either rate, delete or move, whatever is quicker. It will be way quicker than dealing with Photos.

I took Photos from 54,000 images (very few duplicates) to 21,000. It’s not too bad a job. On and off, no rush, took about a week.

 

[Mike Boreham]

I’d start with backing up the library and any referenced folders to an external and doing your work on the copied version.

If you use albums, ask yourself if you care about any photos not in albums. If not, build a smart album to gather these, give them a glance and delete much of your task.

Then get a good duplicates culler. I use Photosweeper. Having used others, extremely pleased with it. If interested ask for my settings, Mac is not with me at the moment. Suggest avoiding any apps in reviews with buy-me links. My experience is they are rated based on money to the site rather than functionality to the user.

Next I’d get a browser that can read Photos' library and cull from there. Either rate, delete or move, whatever is quicker. It will be way quicker than dealing with Photos.

I took Photos from 54,000 images (very few duplicates) to 21,000. It’s not too bad a job. On and off, no rush, took about a week.

Thanks for tip about Photosweeper. The settings make it very powerful for finding near duplicates, and showing them at a size where you can chose directly.

 

[estockme]

I've been thinking about this for a while as I'm pressing up against my 200gb icloud limit. I've used Powerphotos and photosweeper along with the built-in duplicates functionality. Some other things that I'd like to be able to automate (there are tools for some of these but i haven't found the best workflows yet):
- detecting large files in the library
- converting live/burst photos to stills
- groups of similar photos taken together
- automatically identifying the best/worst versions

I'm also a developer and have been thinking about building a tinder-style swiping app for idly classifying keepers and trash, but haven't gotten around to it.

 

[JamesMay82]

I've been thinking about this for a while as I'm pressing up against my 200gb icloud limit. I've used Powerphotos and photosweeper along with the built-in duplicates functionality. Some other things that I'd like to be able to automate (there are tools for some of these but i haven't found the best workflows yet):
- detecting large files in the library
- converting live/burst photos to stills
- groups of similar photos taken together
- automatically identifying the best/worst versions

I'm also a developer and have been thinking about building a tinder-style swiping app for idly classifying keepers and trash, but haven't gotten around to it.

I'm a control freak so I just spent an afternoon doing it. Mainly because I tried the duplicates option and its good but I also found on some of my tests it didn't always keep the best version of the photo.

plus a bonus it makes you go down memory lane and look at your photos which I think we often forget to do.