Short Tutorial

Getting Started

This short tutorial will walk you through the use of PhotoSort, covering the basic steps starting from how to select folders that will be included in the search for duplicate pictures, how to change the tolerance level and finally how to handle duplicates that you have selected or marked. For a very quick look at these basics through pictures take a look at our quick start guide.

Step 1:

Adding folders that contain pictures

You can add folders in two ways: Drag and drop them from their original location right into the PhotoSorts window, or browse for them from within the program by clicking on the Add folder button.

That will open a standard Browse For Folders dialog in which you can choose a folder. Clicking on the OK button will add it to the list.

When you are finished adding folders, click on the button titled Next and wait a few moments for the program to finish sorting out your pictures.

Add folders that hold your pictures

Step 2:

Duplicate picture listing

Now you can select which of the duplicate pictures you do not want to keep (or want to rename or move). Pictures are sorted in groups where all pictures similar enough will be in the same group. The default tolerance level is 4. By increasing this level at the tolerance level bar located to the right of the list some more groups will show up and some less similar pictures will be grouped together. At the lowest level (1) only absolutely identical ones will be grouped.

When you click on a picture in the list the program will automatically select the most similar one and show them both in small preview windows. To mark a picture simply click on its preview or click on the small check-box that is next to the file name. To do some automatic marking, turn to the right-click menu and the tools that are available from there. Click Next when done.

Mark duplicate pictures by using the built-in tools

The Built-in viewer

Taking a closer look at pictures

You can open a picture in a built-in viewer by right-clicking on the picture preview, by using the right-click menu from the list or if you prefer using the keyboard, pushing the Enter key. This way you can examine it in a new window in a much bigger size and you can enlarge this window as much as your screen will let you.

The built-in viewer uses caching and preloading mechanisms to ensure best speed and can also be used for marking pictures as well as browsing through the results list one picture in large size one at a time, which some users find preferable.

Go trough the list of duplicate pictures one by one and see pictures closeup

Step 3:

Taking an action

This is where you will end up after you have finished marking pictures. You will be able to choose if you wish to delete all the marked pictures, move them to a folder of your choice or rename them so you can handle them later. One last option is to hide the selected pictures from the results list without doing anything to the files.

By clicking on the button and confirming your choice an appropriate action will be performed and you will be returned to the list from the Step 2, to continue marking the pictures or exit the program.

Choose what you want to do with the selected duplicate pictures