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Multiple photos

Yimbo
Resolved

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Posted September 16, 2011 at 6:16PM

I'm just realising the huge amount of duplicate photos stored in various programs on my computer - Windows Media Player, Real Player, Picasa to name but a few! They seem to have just up-loaded all my photos automatically. They must be taking up a lot of space - and slowing things down generally. My main photo store in in "My Pictures" with a back-up copy in a separate hard drive.

Can I safely delete all these other copies of my photos, keeping the programs of course, for future use, and still leave the "My Pictures" folder intact?

Can I also prevent these programs from up-loading photos until I choose otherwise?

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wiz-king

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Posted September 16, 2011 at 7:00PM

You will have to be careful as some programs only store a location to the photo not the actual image and you can end up without any pictures.

You could try a duplicate finder to find any copies.

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hssutton

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Posted September 16, 2011 at 7:02PM

Are you sure they are duplicates or just thumbnails linking to My pictures?

You will probably find that all these duplicate photos are in fact just thumbnails that link to the original in 'My Pictures' the ones in Picasa will certainly be.

There is an option in Picasa to delete from just Picasa or to delete from your hardrive, so be careful.

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BRYNIT

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Posted September 16, 2011 at 7:02PM

Are they duplicate photos or are these programs just creating short cuts to the photos?

The easiest solution would be to back up all your photos to a separate partition or HD before attempting to delete the duplicates this will prevent any possible loss.

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Yimbo

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Posted September 16, 2011 at 11:51PM

Thanks folks! I didn't realise the potential pit-falls in just deleting these "duplicate" photos (if that's what they are!).

I'm glad I asked the questions in my post - and even more to have received your advice and warnings!

Thanks!

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