Duplicate Files

How to Delete Duplicate Videos on Mac OS? – 4 Proven Ways

Highlights: Are you tired of deleting similar video files on your macOS, don’t worry, we have brought this writeup on “how to delete duplicate videos on Mac?” for you.

Videos in any form such as informational, motivational, instructional, cinematic, and more have become an innate part of our lives. Especially, the entertainment clips. Further, we also made a folder collecting our favorite videos.

But in this flow, we end up downloading videos of similar files multiple times. Now, the next time you search for a particular movie file, you find the files are cluttered and disarranged. Thus, to answer this difficulty, go through the following section. In this piece of information, we have extensively covered the manual (free) and professional (quick) solutions.

What if I Don’t Delete the Duplicate Videos on Mac?

If you choose not to remove the identical clips on macOS, there can be several consequences as follows:

• Storage Space: Similar videos on Mac reduce available disk space.
• Organizational Challenges: Identicals clutter files, causing disorganization.
• Backup Size: Duplicates increase backup size unnecessarily.
• Performance Impact: More files can slow down system performance.
• Difficulty in Identifying Originals: Copies of original files can complicate identifying original videos.
• Potential for Data Loss: Duplicates complicate data recovery after system failure.
• Time Wasted in Searching: Clones increase time spent searching for videos.
• Risk of Deleting Important Files Mistakenly: Manual management raises the risk of deleting important videos.
• Duplicate Management Tools: Use software for efficient duplicate deletion.
• Regular Maintenance: Periodically clean up for an organized file system.

How to Delete Duplicate Videos on Mac OS Using Finder?

In this segment, we will be focusing on this solution using the Finder application to remove similar video clips. Here, we will be scanning files through manual visualization by their appearance, names, and extensions. Let’s go through the following:

• Open Finder and locate the Videos folder in your Applications directory.
• Navigate to the video storage folder, change the view to “List,” and sort by name or size.
• Manually scan for duplicate videos with identical names or sizes.
• Select duplicates using the Command key, right-click, and choose “Move to Trash” to delete them.

How to Find and Remove Duplicate Media Files on macOS in Terminal?

This part deals with the technical approach to detect and eliminate identical videos from the media library. You need to have some basic knowledge about the Terminal app commands. With this intro, let’s dive straight into the process:

• Open Terminal: Go to Applications → Utilities → Terminal.
• Navigate to Video Folder: Use the cd command to reach the video directory, e.g.,

cd /path/to/video/folder

• Run Commands: Identify duplicates by running this command:

find . -type f -exec md5 {} \; | sort | uniq -w32 -d --all-repeated=separate

• Delete Duplicates: Manually delete duplicates with the rm command, for instance:

rm /path/to/duplicate/video

Note:

Backup: Always back up your files before deleting them to avoid accidental loss.

Caution: Terminal commands can permanently delete files.

Also Read: How to Remove Duplicate Files on macOS?

How to Get Rid of Duplicate Videos on Mac with Photos App?

This solution is not very popular among the users because the Photos App is used for the images. But, in video multimedia format we can also use it, let’s see through the following:

Open Photos App

• Launch the “Photos” app on your Mac.

Import Videos

• If videos are not in the Photos library, drag and drop them or use “Import.”

Create a Smart Album

• Click “File” in the menu bar.
• Choose “New Smart Album.”
• Set criteria for duplicates (e.g., File Name, Date).

Review Smart Album

• The Smart Album includes matching videos; review to find duplicates.

Delete Duplicates

• Select duplicate videos in the Smart Album.
• Press “Delete” and confirm.

Empty Recently Deleted

• Deleted videos go to “Recently Deleted.”
• To permanently remove, go to “Recently Deleted,” select videos, and click “Delete All” or “Recover.”

Shortcomings in the Manual Solutions to Remove Duplicate Videos

Listed below are some of the major challenges while operating the manual methods:

• Identifying and deleting files demands computing power, causing delays.
• Free processes raise the risk of unintentional data loss.
• Manual deletion may overlook storage optimization.
• Easily accessible approaches are impractical with growing datasets.
• Relying on consistent file naming impacts accuracy.
• Complimentary deduplication requires frequent adjustments.
• Manual processes expose sensitive information, posing risks.
• Identifying legitimate versions amid duplicates is challenging.
• Meeting regulations is difficult without automated solutions.
• The above processes lack flexibility for deduplication criteria.

How to Delete Duplicate Videos on macOS? – A Master Guide

From the above, you can find that the above process is free but poses some drawbacks. Therefore, we will use the simplest and best duplicate remover tool to remove all the duplicate video clips on the Mac Big Sur, Ventura, Sonoma, and all versions. Moreover, using this utility clears the redundant files in just a few clicks.

Here are some of the main attributes of this application:

• Intelligent file scanning with a recognition engine.
• Recursive scanning option.
• Move or delete duplicate video files.
• Scan 70+ file extensions (e.g., .mp3, .mp4, .png, .jpg).
• Detect visually identical images.
• Preserve user data during scanning.
• Try the free trial version.

Simple Steps to Find and Delete Duplicate Videos on macOS

• Download and install the Duplicate Video File Finder Tool on your computer.

• Click “Add Folder” to select the desired folder.

• Configure the scan settings in the dialog box, including choosing file types (MP4, AVI, etc.). Click “Continue.”

• Delete duplicate video files by clicking the “Delete” button.

• Once the elimination process is finished, check for “Deleted” under the Action tag.

Final Takeaway

In this blog, we have discussed the effective solutions to the query i.e. “How to Delete Duplicate Videos on Mac OS?” Further, we have outlined the manual (free) and expert (quick) methods to remove similar video clips on macOS Ventura and other older versions. We agree that the manual methods are free, but their reliability and effectiveness often fall short. Due to these reasons, we recommend going with the distinctive duplicate video file removal application.