I've tried many duplicate and similar file finders, and I find Gemini and Disk Drill to be the only ones worth using. They're nearly equal, with different strengths and weaknesses (Disk Drill doesn't do similars at all, but in my experience it is better at finding all duplicates in large sets on a single pass; you can make Gemini better by taking the smallest-file setting off of 'auto', but it's a pain to manage it manually all the time). Gemini could use better options for sorting, filtering, and selecting, especially on similars. For example, being able to directly do things like "select all files that are smaller dimensions" -- it will eventually detect this pattern and include it in the 'auto'/'smart' selection in the future, but you can't toggle it directly (or create it directly!) which is extremely irritating. Another example: you can sort within individual groups by differening dimensions or file sizes, but it would be literally infinitely more useful to be able to 1) do this across all groups and 2) filter the result set on these criteria. After recovering data, for example, I want to be able to say "ONLY show me similar images that differ by dimension", because what I care about is trying to remove thumbnails and previews generated by photo management software and keep the largest version/original; I don't care about looking at all the similar, same-size masters from a set of burst images.
I started using Gemini 2 because I have a huge mess of photos and videos that have accumulated over the years that I'm sorting. Other apps were such a pain that I had decided just to do it manually until I looked into Gemini 2. The feature that I love the most is that you can perform a scan once, begin to delete files, take a break or close the app entirely, and then reopen it and basically just pick up where you left off. I have thousands of files in the scans that I've done and haven't had the app crash or experience any issues. My biggest critique is that I wish there was a way to quickly tell Gemini 2 to disregard. The app has the ability to disregard files and folders which is great. But it's a pain to have to enter them in manually. When going through the files after the scan, it would be nice to have a box to check to disregard the files or perhaps grey them out -- I have files that I need to be in multiple places or some of the similar files identified are definitely similar, but are still distinct and I need to have them.
I just got rid of over 30G of duplicate files, some of which have been floating around for a decade or more. I found the interface fairly easy to use (though at times got a little mixed up and had to remind myself to select the one I want to DELETE, not KEEP!) It’s great at identifying duplicates… but don’t expect it to be 100% spot on. I did have to make some manual changes after the scan, and that did take a little time, but far LESS time than making a manual comparison to all files scattered across three hard drives. I would recommend always, ALWAYS, visually inspecting all matches before deleting. One thing I wish it would do, for when it finds duplicates scattered between two folders, is remember which folder you kept them in (much like it remembers whether you prefer older or newer, higher or lower resolution (or bitrate)). It’s probably a little bit more complex an algorithm to track, so I understand why it’s not part of the patterns it can detect. Also, it would be nice if it could flag any folders that were rendered empty after a purge, but I understand that, too, is probably above and beyond.
I have a Mac that the family shares and we each have a login. We all have our own Apple IDs, tied back to the family account owner. I bought this to clean up my wife's iCloud photos. Per Apple, you cannot cancel subscription renewals on other family member's subscription purchases, they have to do it, so for future control I bought this under my Apple ID. Tool works fine and did a good job. It was working under both accounts but then at some point it wouldn't work under her account. I think the change happened after the trial period ran out and the purchase portion started. I tried to Restore Purchases, Uninstall/Reinstall, and eventually contacted the company. They don't allow Family Share. Not obvious anywhere pre-purchase and the demo worked under both accounts before. Also, the EULA states it "Allows you to activate one copy of the Software on a single qualified computer". It's a single computer but beacuse logins are tied to Apple IDs, they only allow you to use it under the purchaser's login. Seems like the activation and use don't match the EULA, or how most other Apps function. I like the tool and would probably consider keeping it, but not for $80/year so all 4 of my family members can use it. Bad activation implementation.
Confusing Interface, Output, and Limited Review Capability
Gemini used to be a go to several years ago, perhaps because it was the best out there at that time. After using and upgrading over that time period, I've learned it has some significant flaws. First, it does not find all files in the first run -- you have to execute several times on the same folder, finding more and more duplicates each time. The auto select functionality is murky at best, and the AI doesn't identify patterns consistently. Found dupilicates are displayed with only a portion of the full path their location. Thus, if two or more dupilicates are located in subfolders that look identical, except for upper levels, there is no way to decide which file(s) to select without opening the path for each one (which is annoyingly time consuming). There is not a method to exclude folders from deletion AFTER a scan is completed. The applicaion leaves hard links when it moves/trashes files, obstensibly to allow you to replace the files. This causes other applications (e.g. Finder, DaisyDisk) to double-count files/sizes. The developers need to look at their product and address the usability issues.
This review is only for de-duplicating files in the cloud, which is what I needed, and what Gemini 2 can't do, despite what it advertises. I didn't try de-duplicating files on my computer. I downloaded Gemini 2 because it says, ""delete duplicates in cloud storage like Google Drive and Dropbox." It can't do that. I tried, eventually wrote to support, and they replied, "there is no possibility to scan your cloud storage with Gemini 2." They suggest downloading all cloud files and then scanning them locally. First, if I had room on my computer for all my cloud files, I wouldn't have much need of a de-duplicator. Second, even if I did download everything, all Gemini 2 could do is delete the additional duplicates that I'd just created in doing so. I'd still have to manually find and delete each corresponding file in the cloud. It's not just the app store that makes the false claim -- their website also says, "Duplicates are sneaky, they don’t just live on your Mac’s hard drive. Our duplicate finder scans and locates hidden copies wherever they are... Cloud Storages (Dropbox, iCloud)..." These false statements resulted in a big waste of my time.
I have 20,000 images (mostly jpg files) that I’m trying to organize. Sometimes Gemini finds duplicates and similar images, but most often it doesn’t find anything. This is rather infuriating as I know it can identify 2 pictures that are only slightly different — but only sometimes. Then, when I run the program, having just seen similar and duplicate images, Gemini 2 says it can’t find anything at all. I’ve tried everything I can think of — checking larger sets, and smaller sets of images — it just doesn’t seem to make any difference. I have the files on an external disk, so I’ve tried an older and less powerful mac, and then tried my new Power Book — still inconsistant results. I’ve reset the preferences, and reinstalled. The program is “editor’s choice” — but, at least for me, I’m left to do most of the work manually myself. NO FEEDBACK from the program - NO SUGGESTIONS given when it says “nothing found.” Surely they can do better than that with a popular program. - Disappointed
Do not download this app unless you have a backup!! Thousands of photos were deleted without my request in the background!! I've always been a strong supporter of this app both on ios and mac but yesterday something happened that I hope never happens to anyone else. I performed a scan like ive done in the past but today my fans randomly started spinning out of control and my computer was dangerously hot!! I open the app and then I get a pop up that says out of memory!! How when I previously had over 70GBS in free space!? They literally pulled all of photos from my cloud and dumped random photos in my trash without any action or prompting on my end. I am beyond dissapointed and confused not only because of the potentail damage to my computer but the efforts I have to go thru to hopefully gain my photos back. My photos and computer are all I have. This is very nerve racking and saddening. I just hope no one ever has to ever go though this. Ive never had an issue before and ive loved this app. I guess all I can say is proceed with caution.
Worked great until last update. Now it won't activate
Bought this through app store. Worked great. Two months ago they pushed an "update"... hasn't been able to restore previous purchases since. I have a year subscription and only get to use it for 9-10 months i guess. If you are going to buy anything from MacPaw just do it direct. I have had issues with other programs of theirs and even tho it was a recurring issue, they at least dealt with it there. Buying here you have no recourse and are just stuck without your software. I have GOT to get this working and now I have to pay for it AGAIN to buy off the site to get a full version even tho I already own a subscription for it! Frustrating. Seems all the bugs with MacPaws products have to do with regisration and subscriptions so be aware it won't always work when you need it to and you might have to wait a few days to get any response back.
I tried the free version, then paid my 19,95. I then read you have 3 days to cancel. Well I have some secluded land in Nevada too. It's called desert. Anyway I tried multiple time as in at least 4. I had they emails come back ignoring the cancellation notice on the first day and the second day. Then it say you have the 3 days right. Well that is not exactly true. Because they tell you it may be 24 hours before they respond. So you have 2 days. I was charged and told to enjoy. I fired off more emails asking to cancel. I promised I would use the program and deleted it. I had 2 more programs from this same company. Sparkle and Upscale duplicate software. Today I deleted both programs and hope that before my year is up I can get these applications cancelled. This is your warning. Hope it helps. This is Apples fault by the way for not monitoring the information included with the terms and conditions of apps they include on the store. To bad they take our business as a right instead of a service provider.
The program does a good job (not great) of finding duplicates. It frequently misses photos with names that are close even though the date and time are the same. For example. if a file is named jpg001 and the next one is JPG 001 (3). the program misses it. When you use the similar feature, the program does a good job of matching similar photos. However, it is missing the photo data of the image to help make an informed decision of which file to keep and delete. For that reason, I can not trust my decisions. Then the worst part of the program with the latest update the program crashes. I assume they will fix that problem when enough people have the problem. For me, the other issues make it not useable. I also have to share I love cleanmymac (made by the same company). I think they will eventually get this program done properly or I hope they will. For now, I can not recommend it.
Worthless app that doesn't do what it's supposed to!
Expect to spend a hefty amount of money on this application just for them to openly lie about doing tasks such as "automatically selecting files based on pattern recognition". It will NOT do that. It scan all your folders and files and provide you with a dropdown to supposedly select files for deletion, but will NOT select it for you. Expect to select thousands of detected files one-by-one for deletion yourself. This is a waste of money. It's a complete scam. When it does select your files, it selects ALL files, including the duplicates and the originals, leaving all your original files permanently garbaged and forcing you to retrieve those lost files using a recovery software, costing you MORE money and valuable time. This developer cheats you into a program that does NOTHING what it's proclaimed to do. I have emailed their staff about this and blamed ME, the customer for them not correcting their error. This company and developer is a SCAM. BUYER BEWARE!
I set to use use Gemini 2 with great anticipation, given the many positive reviews, but the results disapointed me. Maybe they should clarify what they mean when they say that the software "detects pictures that are similar, but not identical". What do they mean by "similar"? It did not work for me with pictures that are the result of two different scans of the same original print! I have a large Photos library (about 50GB), made up of two kinds of pictures: pics taken with my iphone over the years, and pics scanned from old regular prints. The software worked fine for the pictures taken with the iphone, but not at all for the scans. This is despite the fact that I *know* I have duplicates or similars (two scans of the same picture), as I can *see* some of them myself. To make this failure more notable, I even duplicated one of the scanned pictures manualy (i.e. the exact same digital file, with a different name) and the software did not find it! Disapointing.
I was an owner/fan of Gemini vers 1.0 and have recently purchased this version as well. Despite the feedback below, I think its probably the best application for what it does. Here’s what I think works really well, and what I think not so much: The Well: - The duplicate detection is spot on. I’m always paranoid about it not actually selecting duplicate files. More often than not I trust but verify. I’ve never had it screw up the duplicate finding. - The scanning works quickly. - I’m enjoying the smart behavioral selection feature. The Not so Well: - It may be because I have a LOT of files to sort through, but the app crashes a lot with big scans (>50GB duplicates?). - Its very slow sorting through those big scans. - Its tedious to review findings. When sorting I can’t select multiple files within a file set. i.e. if it finds multiple versions of a particular file, and want to manually select or unselect for removal. It has to happen one at a time, and there’s a delay for each one. - I love I can export detected duplicates to a text file, but I can’t actually bring those back into the application to re-process. If there’s a crash it doesn’t always remember my previous selections, and this file export requires me to use another tool to process and remove.
Gemini II great so far! McPaw should review pricing options
I purchased Gemini II after purcahsing Clean My Mac X. (I already owned photosweeper). So far, (after one use, Gemini II has been the most useful) because I needed to gain memory by finding duplicate files in addition to photos etc. I really like that it shows a comparision of the items it wants to delete, which allows for the option to change which item (due to file location etc), or to delete all versions. My ONLY issue is not so much with this APP, but with McPaw. It seems unreasonable to be charged for three separate, yet similar apps. At the very least there should be a bundle or discount! McPaw's pricing is the only thing that came close to changing my decsion on which app/s to purchase.
Unable to delete photos in Photos and only works on default System Photo library
After finding a lot of duplicates, it was unable to delete the photos from within Photos, and instead created a separate album called Gemini Duplicates. Now what is the point of going through over 1000 photos in Gemini Duplications album ONE BY ONE to do right click > Show in All Photos > and then Delete?? If you just hit delete it only removes it from that album and not the actual library! I'm definitely not going to go through 1000 photos to delete them one at a time obviously. Also, why does this not work with whichever library you have open currently in Photos? A lot of people have multiple libraries so it should not require it to be the default system library. Thanks for the trial but I would not be paying for this until these issues are addressed
Just a way to spend $20 and not have a thing to show for it. Took forever to scan, then it told me there was over 80,000 files to clean up, but I would need to pay money for that. Sounded good, as it came with a guarantee. So, I paid for the app and ran the scan. Nothing found. Tried again and I got some results. Quite frankly it's MUCH QUICKER to go through my photos manually. This found a bunch of duplicates, but every time I selected one to remove, I got the rotating color circle, which eventually went away, but took several seconds. So, I could delete about 9 or 10 in a minute or so. Or, I could just go through my photos, hold the command key as I select them and could do about 80 in a minute. Free and much quicker! Lots of emails to support; they had me delete and re-install the app, but nothing worked. Never got my money refunded - so much for a guarantee. Just a waste of money and time.
I have a 400 GB Photos library that is the result of merging a few archived iPhoto libraries dating back as far as 2009 with a differnt program that could delete exact filename duplicates, but not similar pictures, which is where I was hoping this would come in. When I scan my Photos library with this program, it says nothing is similar. I guarantee in that 400GB there are similar images. I have a few photos outside of the Photos library for editing purposes and it picks those up and compares them just fine. 'm glad it has a 3 day trial before you subscribe, but considerign that, as with any subscription through Apple's platform, you have to cancel a day before the renewal date, giving you effectively only 2 days, withc is barely any time to contact support, get a reply, and see if it works, repeat, etc.
This is the best of those I've tried. However there's still a couple features and one issue that I'd like to see addressed. Features: (1) Would love to be able to search for duplicate files by name or file extention or type. (2) Would love to have it find empty folders for deletion, and (3) would like to be able to select at once all the smallest size files among the duplicates. And Fix: (a) would like to understand why files that are clearly not the same size are still showing as duplicates
Just warning everyone: first time trying this app I attempted to remove duplicates on a 10 TB backup drive. After 8 hours, with barely any files remaining, it froze. I had to close the app, and lost everything it had done. Do I spend another 8 hours trying again? No — I think I'll get a better app instead. UPDATE: I see the developer has responded that 10 TB is too much for Gemini 2. I wonder, is this made clear to purchasers at any point? Gemini certainly didn't tell me this when it indexed and then scanned a 10 TB drive, it just said it was scanning for duplicates for 8 hours and then crashed. Seems like if there is a size limit (and what exactly is it, by the way? Still not clear!), the marketing materials or user guide or app itself or something should make that clear.
photography and drawing are my hobbies. i have a photo archive of over 25K pics and another with many hundreds of drawings. As you probably know, many apps like this just grab all versions of a pic that are close to each other or similar. Gemini is more fine tuned. this app detects small differences, which is great. It will notice if i change just a few lines on a drawing or alter a small part of a photo. the price doesn’t bother me - i paid for it once a couple of years ago, i keep getting the updates free, it always works well and i use it constantly. good value
I downloaded and installed Gemini 2: The Duplicate Finder, but deleted it upon reading the privacy policy. "As with most websites and technology services delivered over the internet, our servers automatically collect data when you access or use our Site and/or Product and record it in log files.” Seriously? I’m looking to purchase an app that can simply scan the information on my hard drive for duplicate files— i.e., information that I keep on my local drive because I want to keep it private. This task should not require the app to collect or report any personal information, or indeed, to report any information; that would be completely inappropriate for a paid application and a breach of trust. I will look elsewhere.
I'm going to give this four stars because it's still a great app, but it launched someting called duplicates monitor, which was quietly working in the background. Great except I had no idea until my computer (pretty new) kept telling me I was out of memory. I finally looked at the activity monitor and saw it was using 65 GB of memory. That's a bit much. I turned off the monitor and I hope that will take care of business. This was from the latest update. Otherwise, I find this to be a really useful app. Maybe they'll fix the memory hog issue.
I've been looking around for an easy, yet powerful Photo Duplicate finder. I've tried over half a dozen Duplicate finder's and I've finally settled on "Gemini 2" as my preferred duplicate Utility. Cost and speed makes it easy on my wallet and easy on my time! My family has accumulated over 8 Million photos in the last 10 years, this app doesnt turn my iMac into paperweight. I wish I'd have found this app sooner. Now onto scanning my NAS drive to free up more space. Satisfied & Happy
Gemini was my TOP dups finder...but now (4/9/21) it has become a computer-freezing memory hog that is a tremendous pain in the posterior. I have to "force quit" it to enable my iMac (40GB memory) to even run! Gemini II is less than useless now, and I am, with DEEP REGRET, forced to uninstall it and find another depu program to keep my 20,000 image files devoid of useless duplicats. OH PLEASE GEMINI...fix this issue -- fast! I presume it is a memory "LEAK" of some sort, but I'm not computer guru, so who knows? All I know is: This WAS a fabulous tool...and now it is USELESS. Please...please...sort this out ASAP guys. I want my Gemini BACK to being usable. It hurts to have to write this, after so many years of great performance by this tool. I MISS SHALL MISS IT...and hope the fix comes SoooOON, so I can again recommend it to my fellow photographers!
I gave them an extra star for suctomer service as they reached out after I wrote the below review This app needs a lot of work, I have a huge database and I am trying out different programs to pair down my collection and get rid of duplicates. I tried this one out and quit after it took a long time to process and then the interface was clunky and not intuitive.
I wrote a 15 line Python script that does most of what this application does, but I decided to try it to see if it had any intelligence regarding images with different checksums but the same appearance, or anything like that at all, and it completely failed to do anything more than my Python script. And it required me to pay to remove all the duplicates at once instead of laboriously doing one at a time. In addition to that, where's the dark mode? We've had dark mode in macOS for five years now, yet this app was last updated two months ago at time of writing and still doesn't support dark mode. Not a fan of the nagging and ads, either.
App apparently destroyed hundreds of photos and tech spt is ignoring me
I have been ignored for four days now by Gemini tech support after an initial exchange of emails about how the Gemini “similar photos” function appears to have PERMANENTLY deleted hundreds of my photos through my iPhone8+ (and therefore also from my Cloud account), although it’s not supposed to be able to do that. I’m an expert user, have owned/used computer continuously since the early (gasp) 1980’s. I know how to follow app instructions - yet this happened. I have also tried to reach out to MacPaw on social media - no response. BUYER BEWARE. UPDATE - I reached MacPaw support, finally - and they had no solution for me. They claim their app couldn’t have produced these results. Yet I’m still missing my photos.
Tried 6 different Apps, this was by far the easiest
I purchased a 5TB drive and consolidated all of my photos from 4 different external drives. I also downloaded all my photos from the cloud. After consolidating everything I found that I had as many 5 copies of a particular photo. I eperimented with 6 different apps to see which was the fastest at eliminating duplicates and found Gemini 2 to be the fastest if you use the Smart Cleanup. If you want to look at each photo Gemini 2 was very tedious.
I recently purchased the Gemini 2 yearly subscription to help remove some of the duplicate photos I've imported onto my Mac. What I didn't realize was, as of January 2022, the latest version of iPhoto (6.0) and Gemini are not comptabile, which means you cannot automatically remove ("Smart Cleanup") duplicate photos, which I unfortunately have hundreds of. Gemini does do a great job at finding duplicate files, photos, and documents quickly. However, I wish the comptaibility issue was stated upfront, espeicailly given most people who use Gemini are Mac users and I assume would expect it to work with OS applications like iPhoto.
Excellent for removing both duplicates and similars... like photo bursts
First, I use a Synology server and the Moments app on my phone to manage photos. When I forget to select the image I want from a burst of photos... they all get uploaded to my Synology server. In comes Gemini 2. I just point my laptop at the file share, let Gemini 2 index it, and review/remove all unwanted pictures. Some of this can be done via the Moments web interface; however, it is much faster to process using Gemini 2!!
I made a mess of Dropbox when installing it on a new computer and accidentally installed the business version instead of the professional version. At the end of the day, I went back to a TM backup from an older computer and then let Dropbox sync with that. Anyway, to the point, I ended up with a couple hundred gig of dups. Worked my way thru cafefully, Gemini even found the dreaded (sync conflict) files. Love it. Going thru my music now. Much easier than iTunes find duplicates.
I've tried a couple of others and they were all too complex, crashed often, or were over priced. I was skeptical of the reviews, but I've been using this product for a few days now to whittle through my family's tens of thousands of photos and it's working like a charm. The only thing I'd add would be a folder preference -- like prefer the duplicates in this folder over that folder. Maybe you could give the folders a ranking when you added them? Other than that wel worth the money. I haven't had a program in a while that I actually enjoy using. Great interface, good performance, and good results. One of the things that really sold me was how support actually seems to be reading the comments and feedback. Thanks!
I'm utterly disgusted with the constant bait-and-switch that software developers keep pulling; you purchase an app outright, and not cheaply either! Then magically it later turns into a subscription model and they demand even more money of you annually just to keep using the program you already bought. Unacceptable. Hey Macpaw, If you're disappointed with the sales of your app, try advertising it or making a new version with compelling reasons to upgrade for a fee. Don't just lazily decide to milk your existing customers. There's no worse way to treat your customers than this. I'll never buy a Macpaw app again and I'll tell everyone I know to also avoid them.
I was worried that this app was going to take me to the dark places of my computer that I don't know exsist and then need to comb through hours worth of duplicates. Not the case at all! I am not a professional photographer and as such I tend to take about 5-10 pictures of the same thing to make sure I get at least one. This let me go through the pictures I had similar ones of and get rid of the ones I wasn't interested in.
I'm impressed with this app, i just started using it recently. I'm impressed that it finds duplicates in different external drives as well as finding files that are in fact a duplicate but have different names, based on file info (creation, size, date modified). I have not had any negative experiences that other users have had, as my nature would be to always carefully review each match before I select one for deletion
For somebody like me, not really a computer expert and at times afraid to use an application / to follow the instructions, this is an easy one. No headaches, simply download it, click scan, wait for the app to complete the scan, then click 'automatic' to have the app select the duplicates for you. And it's done. Simply, go to Photos and open the Gemini duplicate folder, select all (pictures and files), delete them, and then clear the trash. Easy!
Works okay (only justification for 1 star) but only caught about half of the duplicates. Checked MacPaws several times to find my subscription and kept getting told I don't have any subscriptions with any MacPaws products. Asked to have my subscription cancelled well before I was supposed to be charged. Got a reply "we didn't hear a preply so assuming you are enjoying Gemini II" First, they didn't send me any messages asking for a reply (I checked my junk folder). Second, got charged to use the product for the year. Third, they cancelled my subscription despite charging me for one year of service. Four, I'll be reporting this to the BBB for ripping me off.
So, I lost a hard drive at one point and the recovery process ended up duplicating many photos and videos. While space is cheap, it made staying organized very challening. This product was easy to use and accurately identified duplicates. You can accept the deletion proposal, or adjust it manually. In my case, it was still work, but did help to end my duplicate nightmare. Highly recommend.
Not only does it take hours and hours to scan your directory, but it constantly freezes and crashes once you choose more than 4 files to delete, and then after force-quitting the app, everything is erased and you have to start over. Instead of this app, just go to ChatGPT and have it create a script to find duplicates and put the pathnames into an excel spreadsheet. You'll need to go into each path when you want to delete, but it will save you WEEKS of work that you would end up wasting with this app.
For its intended purpose, I don't believe there is a better product out there currently. I specifcally like when it reminds me. I would have given it 5 stars but I could not find a setting that would warn me when a duplicate was being created. That would be sublime, but maybe would not serve the purpose of the applications value.
Misleading. Doesn't do the One thing its needed for.
This app and I spent 49 hours. The user interface does not acknowledge the existence of the user, or thier need for info about duplicate or similiar files before making a decision to delete. You're not allowed to delete more than one thing at a time. You can select everything, but it will only delete one, and you have to redo that for (in may case) 145 Gigs worth of documents. Not HD movies. just rtf files and a few low res images in a thumbnail catalogue. USELESS. I deleted it immediatly to avoid having to pay a subscription for a really complex version of spotlight search.
I downloaded based on reviews, but now regret I used this application. Ran the system and it found duplicates, but it does not tell me where the origioal and the duplicate are located, only the duplicate, so I donlt know if I want to erase the file. NOTE: My computer froze and had to be restarded when I ran the program and the dupliate files were in the trast, the application now does not know how to recover the files. … as far as I can tell I cant recover any files now! Wow— fatal flaw. Cant belive this won a redDot for interface design, lack of feedback by the application, overly simplified, no user control makes this a bad deal.
Downloaded this to find and delete some duplicate photos in my library. It did a good job finding the duplicates but gave me some permissions error when I tried to use the smart delete feature. Gave the app full disk privledges. No luck. Contacted support and they asked me to down load some diagnostic zip file "Please follow the link below to download the support tool, which will help us to understand the behavior of the application from your computer". I am sorry but that is totally sketchy and makes me think this is probably malware.
I have periodically noticed duplicate files that were different sizes (such as videos that have been compressed or resized). Sometimes Gemini catches them, in fact most of the time. Considering it maps the drives and scans everything pretty quickly, I can deal with a file left behind
I have been looking for a great photo duplicate finder since DupeGuru PE was pretty much abandoned. Fortunately, by chance, I found Gemini II. It has a much better detection algorithm than DupeGuru and much faster! Sadly, it lacks the organizational methods DupeGuru had. I would love to see the ability to sort ALL items by path so I could remove all objects from certain locations.
I attempted to clean out a bloated library of PDF files. This has more bling than utility. * Duplicates cannot be viewed side-by-side or top-to-bottom to assure that they are duplicates. You have to view each duplicate one at a time. I don't know how they obtain the second picture in the ad because it is NOT what you will see. * The view window does not remember the zoom setting from one document to the next. My PDFs were always too big for the screen each time I would select another one.
I purchased this application to de-duplicate a large collection of files that I have accumualted over the years. It consistently encounters out of memory errors. I believe it used around 50GB RAM according to the task manager when I was last forced to kill it. As my Macbook Pro (m1) only has 16GB RAM, most of this must be virtual memory. Otherwise, it seems to do a decent job at hunting down identical (and similar) files and presenting a decent user interface to delete the correct duplicates.
This does not DE-DUPE the infamous HEIC vs JPG Double Import situation between iPhone & Mac Photos Library for starters. There is NO easy way to, for example KEEP HEIC instead of JPG. In fact, these do not appear under "Duplicate" but rather "Similar" Sorting and Selection is also an issue. There is no sort "by date". Why? Selection rarely works, and you end up having to selct ANY instead of Oldest, Newest. It is also at this point where the App tends to crash. Beachball, and crash when sorting or selecting. Gallery View doesn't work either. Finally, why is this a "Subscription Model"? Most people need this for- like a day. Or once a year. Why would I pay a subscription for a simple UTILITY application. Honestly, this is maybe worth $9.99 as a ONE Time purchase, and even then it is too buggy and missing key features.
There is no cancel subscription option, so they really try to rebill you. To avoid this, I had to find their email and write "Please cancel my subscription for XXX. Do not rebill for the next year.” Christine responded with a 30% off offer. I repeated my demand. Christine gave me a complex solution in iTunes, then instead of following up to verify it was cancelled, she wrote: "We didn't receive a reply from you, therefore we assume that things are going great” This is the same stunt internet fax and other companies try, and it’s old and embarrassing because legitiamate companies make it simple to cancel. But the biggest reason not to but this software is that it does a very sloppy job deleting duplicates, and I am going to have to reclean my 12 TB of data from the originals because this program deleted so many of the files in the process — leaving empty folders. DO NOT BUY.
Introducing Duplicates Monitor. A new powerful feature that helps Gemini 2 not only find duplicates that are already on your Mac, but also look out for new ones. Preventing future cluttering. Gemini 2 detects duplicate and similar files in every corner of your Mac, including Photos, Music, and even external drives. And helps you free up tons of disk space. Gemini 2: The Duplicate File Finder is brought to you by the team behind CleanMyMac X. Removing clutter and recovering disk space are our specialty, so we made a duplicate cleaner that does both like a pro. KEY FEATURES Free up gigabytes of storage space: - Find duplicate files of any kind: pics, music, docs, you name it - Identify duplicate folders, too - Delete duplicates on external drives and network volumes - Monitor your Mac or separate folders for new duplicates and delete them right away Organize your photos and music: - Find duplicate photos in your Photos library - Detect pictures that are similar, but not identical - Spot iTunes and Music library duplicates - Find similar music in iTunes and Music library (files that differ only by format or bit rate) Save time picking out duplicate files: - Trust Gemini to autoselect the copies and keep the originals intact - See how similar files differ with the help of handy icons - Add your own Smart Selection rules, like deleting the duplicates that are older Never lose an important file by mistake: - If you removed the wrong duplicate, put it back in a click - Exclude certain files and folders from scan - Move duplicates to a separate folder or onto a USB drive - Replace copies with hardlinks to save space without deleting the files Make finding duplicates less of a drag: - Enjoy the sleek space-themed design - Have fun with wacky achievements and ranks - See if you can spot the Easter Egg! And if you’re wondering what tech reviews say about Gemini 2, wonder no more: we’ve gathered some of them below. WHAT MAC EXPERTS SAY “I’ve been an active user of MacPaw’s Gemini software since its inception, and Gemini 2’s release today has made me fall in love with it all over again. In just the initial scan, Gemini 2 found more files and more places where I could intelligently clear and save space on my Mac.” - 9to5mac “If you want to clean up your Mac, but are trepidatious about digging around in your files and accidentally deleting something important, Gemini 2 has a lot to offer and makes the whole process very simple.” - iMore “With Gemini 2 there’s little reason to fear duplicates. It has a polished, intuitive user interface and the brains to differentiate copies from originals by testing them against nearly a dozen different parameters. It’s also much faster, especially compared to digging through thousands of files and folders the old-fashioned way.” - MacWorld SUBSCRIPTION AND PRICING Some features are only partially available for non-paying users and can be unlocked with a Yearly Access plan. For example, the non-paying users can delete found duplicates only manually via Reveal in Finder feature and don’t have access to Smart Cleanup. See the pricing details in the Information section under In-App Purchases. Have questions? We are always here to help. Please message our support using the contact below. https://macpaw.com/support/contact