Basics

Photo Deduplicator reads photo files (and folders recursively) as input, loads their associated metadata (EXIF and TIFF dictionaries), constructs a new name for each file based on a name pattern you provide and merging metadata information into it, then copys the input files to an output folder changing their name accordingly. If any of this fails, it may be due to some basic issues:

1. Insufficient disk space for copying the files: Make sure you haven't run out of disk space. If you did, check whether you can move to a different drive or wether you can delete some files not needed anymore. Then try again.
2. Can't load input files: Make sure you have the access rights to the files in the folder you selected as input folder. If you can't access those files for viewing them, Photo Deduplicator can't read them either.
3. Unsupported metadata formats: Not all photo files are created equal. Some may be lacking metadata information which therefore results in Photo Deduplicator not being able to load the according information. Displaying the available metadata in Finder for such files may hint at a general problem with the photo file rather than a Photo Deduplicator bug. Not saying there can't be any bugs with Photo Deduplicator though.
4. A photo's or video's creation timestamp seems to be off: Even though EXIF as a format is reasonably standardized, not all cameras or apps use it in exactly this way. Timestamp information – including timezone information and milli/micro-second information – may be found in non-standard or vendor specific metadata properties of your photo or video file. In most cases, things should be just fine, but there may be exceptions to this rule. So in cas you get the impression that something looks weird with the timestamps of your photos or videos, please do the following:
   • On the Settings tab, make sure that the option Use a photo's file creation date... is disabled (deselected). We want to make sure that we don't accidentially see the file system timestamp to be used as a fallback if the real photo or video creation timestamp can't be properly derived from the file. Once we know what's going on and have been able to resolve it, you may enable this property again.
   • Check your photo's or video's metadata properties and validate which property actually holds the correct photo creation date. Please also check in which property the sub-second information is stored (default should be <SubSecTimeOriginal> (or <SubSecTimeDigitized> respectively) as well as the timezone offset information (default should be <OffsetTimeOriginal> (or <OffsetTimeDigitized> respectively).

     If no sub-second information can be retrieved for a photo or video, Photo Deduplicator will take zero as a fallback. If no timezone information can be retrieved for a photo or video, Photo Deduplicator will take your Mac's current timezone based on the System time/date settings.

   • In case the above step reveal that the information is stored in different fields than the default properties, go to Photo Deduplicator's Settings tab and check whether the properties used in your photos or videos, are already in the list of alternative properties listed in the Camera Model section with the respective default property. If it's not there yet, add your properties' names at the end of the respective lines after a comma. See Configuring Photo Deduplicator for more details. Don't forget to reload your input files after any changes made so that they take effect.
   • If none of the above is helping or seems to be the case, please reach out to me via Photo Deduplicator's Help/Support menu item, sending me an email so we can look into the issue. Thanks a lot for your support!

Checking or changing default settings

If Photo Deduplicator makes you scratch your head over some weird behaviour, make sure you have set the right settings. To do so, select the Settings sheet on the navigation bar at the top of the Photo Deduplicator window. This will open the Settings section of Photo Deduplicator. Check if a selection of a certain option provides hints to what might cause the unexpected behaviour. Please also read more about the individual options in the Settings section of this website.

Crashes

In the hopefully extremely unlikely case of a crash of Photo Deduplicator, please get in touch with the author (see below). Thanks a lot and apologies for the inconvenience caused!

If all else fails...

If you've tried all of the above options without success, there's two possible options left:

1. Contact the author of Photo Deduplicator via Photo Deduplicator's Help/Support menu or directly via email at mailto:'Björn Goerke' and provide an understandable description of the problem you're experiencing. Perhaps there's a bug in Photo Deduplicator that can be fixed or a workaround that may help. No guarantee. No promises.
2. Try a different tool that may work in your situation. Sorry for disappointing with Photo Deduplicator.