Photos Keeps Importing the Same Photos

[Hrothgar]

I've got my Photos set to only import new photos from my iPhone 12. (All software up to date as far as I can tell.)
But every time I connect my phone, there are about 50 old photos that keep appearing under the "new" imports, and it keeps importing new copies of them. How can I stop this?

Thanks.

 

[srbNYC]

Similar issue here, and just posted here, too. It's driving me cuckoo.

 

[kchan54]

Hi all,

I actually seeing the same issue regards to Photos app (macOS) keep treating some 'imported' photos as new. I did a little investigation and here is what I found.

It looks like Photos Apps in macOS is treating photos there were not taken with the "Camera" Apps as 'New' photos every times. Photos that were not taken using the Photos App include: Photos imported from other apps (e.g. WhatsApp), Photos taken within "Messages" app (weird!), which get saved to iOS' Photos app automatically btw).

I think it came down to the 'filename' of the photos. macOS Photos app detects "new" photos taken by Camera App correctly (filename starts with IMG_XXXX.HEIC. ). Example bad filenames that macOS Photos app always treat as 'new' : 65349763914__1F81715A-58A3-4694-9AF4-B22A28D84751.HEIC, 65376533748__C1280AC9-DDBF-4920-BB13-EA0F66168288.HEIC, Noah20161120-1.jpeg.

Anyone wanna confirm this, too?

Just posted this on Apple Community as well.

macOS Photos app keep importing the same … - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

Kevin Chan

 

[MilaM]

I have the same problem. It's been like that for years and it is driving me crazy!!

This time, after upgrading to Monterey today, Photos wants to import more than 900 old photos from my iPhone that are already in the library. The oldest one is from 2017.

Most if not all of the affected Photos have originally been inserted into the Camera Roll by WhatsApp.

 

[Art S]

I have this repeating import problem with several hundred photos. It began on Oct 30, 2020. I see that lots of people have the problem, and there are only a few suggestions of how to fix it. Well, I don't know how to fix it yet, but I did figure out something about the problem.

The pics that do repeat certainly do keep their original long filenames, rather than something short and logical like "2050.heic, 2051.heic," etc. I think that's a red herring. What I noticed is that every repeating photo lacks gps info. I've tested by importing new photos with confirmed gps coordinates, and they are not added to the endless repeat list. I also tried to edit one older photo that is repeating, and it imported again without the added gps coordinates.

Something changed on Oct 30, 2020 and I have no idea what it could have been. I wouldn't have noticed this at all, but I just returned from a vacation and imported hundreds of photos from an iphone XR. I was grabbing my phone and quickly snapping pics so a sizable number were grabbed before the gps resolved my location. I also found a few photos with faulty locations, but those don't seem to be repeating.

 

[srbNYC]

I don't know if that's what mine is doing, but it always says it is "uploading 1 item"

 

[MilaM]

This bug was still present in Monterey 12.2, haven't tested 12.3 yet though. In my case almost all photos affected by duplicate imports originated from WhatsApp chats. My theory is that all third party apps that put photos into the camera roll are potentially impacted.

I chose a radical solution and just deleted all the photos from WhatsApp from my iPhone's camera roll. I still have a copy of these photos on my Mac in Photos.app.

Apple clearly thinks everyone should be using iCloud to transfer photos from your iPhone to Photos.app, because ?. Therefore, there is little hope this will ever be fixed.

To find and delete duplicates in my Photos library I used the PhotoSweeper app. It's very inexpensive and worked well to quickly clean up the library.

 

[kchan54]

Hrm.. I'm running 12.2.1. Looks like the issue has been fixed for me.

Update: I forgot to mention that after I upgrade to 12.2.1, I did have to 'import' the duplicate one more time. After that, Photos seems to figure out 'imported' photos correctly. I used the usually photo duplicate fixer program to find and delete duplicates.

 

[Art S]

This bug was still present in Monterey 12.2, haven't tested 12.3 yet though. In my case almost all photos affected by duplicate imports originated from WhatsApp chats. My theory is that all third party apps that put photos into the camera roll are potentially impacted.

I chose a radical solution and just deleted all the photos from WhatsApp from my iPhone's camera roll. I still have a copy of these photos on my Mac in Photos.app.

Apple clearly thinks everyone should be using iCloud to transfer photos from your iPhone to Photos.app, because ?. Therefore, there is little hope this will ever be fixed.

To find and delete duplicates in my Photos library I used the PhotoSweeper app. It's very inexpensive and worked well to quickly clean up the library.

My problem is 100% Apple. I don't use Whatsapp. The repeating import is entirely composed of iphone pictures going into a mac. I can understand that outside photos may have some important data stripped out. I can't understand how this is happening.

 

[MilaM]

Hrm.. I'm running 12.2.1. Looks like the issue has been fixed for me.

For me, unfortunately, the error occurs again and again since Catalina. Photos are imported (as duplicates), then it seems to work for a while, later I have the same problem again. In the end I just caved and deleted all WhatsApp photos from my iPhone.

I have not yet observed that photos taken on the iPhone are affected.

 

[MilaM]

My problem is 100% Apple. I don't use Whatsapp. The repeating import is entirely composed of iphone pictures going into a mac. I can understand that outside photos may have some important data stripped out. I can't understand how this is happening.

I haven't had the problem with photos taken on the iPhone yet, luckily.

I think there is a fundamental bug in the Photos.app which hasn't been fixed for years. I tried to report it many times, but never got any feedback from Apple, so ?‍♂️.