Find and clear duplicates and similar photos in a Lightroom Classic catalog

With Lightroom Classic alone

1. Choose Lightroom Classic > Catalog Settings > Metadata and tick Automatically detect duplicates for all photos.
2. In the Library module, select All Photographs (or a folder), then choose View > Duplicates.
3. Each set appears as a stack with the “original” on top. If the copy with your Develop edits, ratings or collections isn't on top, right-click it and choose Set as Original.
4. Right-click a stack, or several, and choose Remove Duplicates.

Back up the catalog first: File > Back Up Catalog. Adobe's guide: Find and manage duplicate photos.

Where the built-in view stops

• It matches identical image data only. A JPEG you exported, resized or cropped, or an edited copy saved as a new file, is a different file to it.
• It doesn't group bursts: twenty frames seconds apart are twenty photos, not one decision.
• It picks the “original” for you, and you check each stack to see whether it chose the copy you worked on.

What Folio Refresh adds

• Exact copies, similar shots and bursts. Renamed copies, edited, resized and cropped versions, and frames taken seconds apart, grouped from the catalog's own list of photos.
• The copy you worked on is the one to keep. It reads what each copy carries in the catalog: Develop adjustments, pick flag, star rating, collections (the Quick Collection too), keywords and colour label. A copy with any of those is suggested to keep, with the reason in plain words.
• A photo with a virtual copy is never offered for removal. The virtual copy is an edit of that very file.

Similar photos in Lightroom Classic

Similar photos are the same picture saved again: an export resized for the web, a cropped or straightened copy, an edit saved as a new file. The Duplicates view doesn't see them, because their image data differs.

Recent versions of Lightroom Classic can stack photos by visual similarity or by capture time (Assisted Culling > Auto Stack; Adobe's guide: Group your photos into stack). That tidies a shoot into stacks; it removes nothing, and you still choose and reject the extras yourself.

Folio Refresh groups them and suggests what to clear:

• Three settings. Conservative, Balanced and Broad, from near-exact versions to looser edits. Change it and the groups update without a new scan.
• Nothing is ticked to start with. Every similar group says “alike in appearance, not identical”, and you tick what goes.
• Bursts as a series. Photos taken within seconds of each other that look alike are grouped as a series, with the frame to keep suggested: fewer closed eyes first, then Apple's photo-quality score when one is clearly higher.
• Your Lightroom work still decides. The copy with Develop edits, a pick, a rating, a collection, keywords or a label is kept ahead of the others, and a photo with a virtual copy is never offered.
• Compare before approving. Open any group to see two photos side by side, zoomed together.

What it misses: a crop much tighter than the original, or to a different shape (a square from a 3:2 photo), is not grouped; and on Broad, other takes of the same scene can join a group. The similar photos you approve are marked Rejected exactly as duplicates are, below.

What it changes, and only when you approve

One thing: the duplicates you approve are marked Rejected, the same as pressing X in Lightroom. Then you open Lightroom and run its own Delete Rejected Photos, so Lightroom removes them from the catalog and the disk the way it expects. Marking frees no space by itself; the deleting stays in Lightroom.

What it never does

• Delete or move a file. Folio Refresh doesn't touch your photo files in a catalog at all.
• Write while Lightroom is open. Nothing is changed while Lightroom Classic is running or its lock file is beside the catalog: writing to a catalog Lightroom holds open is how catalogs get corrupted. Scanning is read-only, so that is safe at any time.
• Change a catalog without a backup. The whole catalog is copied first, by SQLite itself, into a “Folio Refresh Backups” folder beside it, dated and never overwriting an earlier one. If the copy fails, nothing is changed.
• Leave a catalog half-marked. All the marks go in together, or none do.
• Mark a photo that changed since you reviewed it. Right before marking, each duplicate must still be the same file at the same place in the catalog, not already Rejected and without a virtual copy, and its group must still keep a copy. Anything else is skipped, with the reason.
• Write to a catalog version it hasn't been tested with. Lightroom's catalog layout isn't documented and changes between versions, so marking is refused on any other than the one tested (Lightroom Classic 15's). Scanning still works.

Changing your mind

Every mark is recorded with the flag it replaced, so Undo in Folio Refresh puts the old pick flag back (again while Lightroom is closed). The dated backup beside the catalog is there as well. Once you've run Delete Rejected Photos in Lightroom, it's Lightroom's deletion, and its usual rules apply.

Capture One and Apple Photos

The same care applies elsewhere: in a Capture One catalog duplicates are tagged Red, after a backup and while Capture One is closed, and in Apple Photos they go into a review album for you to delete in Photos. See Photos, Lightroom and Capture One.

Price

Scanning and reviewing are free, and so are the first 100 photos you act on, whether moved, added to a review album or marked in a catalog. Then $14.99 once, no subscription. macOS 15 Sequoia or later.

The technical detail, for anyone curious how a catalog is read and written safely: Cleaning duplicate photos inside Lightroom Classic and Capture One catalogs without breaking them.