Keep the right copy.
Quarantine the rest.

A practical guide to duplicate photo review

What does “exact duplicate” mean?

An exact-content match has the same bytes. It is not a “looks similar” match. A resized export, recompressed JPEG or image with changed metadata may look identical to you and still have different bytes; an exact hash checker will keep those as separate files.

This conservative rule avoids claiming that near-duplicates are safe to remove.

Choose the keeper yourself

Review every path in a group. Consider which folder is part of your preferred organization, whether another application expects that path and whether the file is readily available in another backup. Pin one keeper before selecting copies for quarantine.

Why quarantine instead of delete?

Permanent deletion removes your straightforward way to undo a mistaken choice. Quarantine moves reviewed copies to a folder outside the scanned photo tree and writes a manifest before source removal. The destination copy is hash-verified first.

The manifest can be loaded from the app’s Restore from Quarantine screen after a restart. Restore verifies the quarantined content again and does not overwrite an existing destination: it uses a distinct restored name instead.

What about similar-looking photos?

Burst shots, edited versions, RAW/JPEG pairs and exports are often similar but not byte-identical. This app does not group or remove them. Compare them visually with a trusted image viewer and decide manually.

A careful workflow

1. Scan the selected folder tree and review exact-match groups.
2. Choose one keeper per group; do not rely on an automatic “best” choice.
3. Select only copies you understand and choose a quarantine folder outside the source tree.
4. Verify the report and keep the quarantine manifest until you are satisfied.
5. Use Restore from Quarantine to recover a selected item if needed.