Folio Refresh and the alternatives
Five Mac apps that find duplicate photos, side by side: where each one looks, what it finds, how it picks the copy to keep, whether you can undo it, and what it costs. Checked on 27 October 2026 from each app's own listing and published reviews. PhotoSweeper's price re-checked on 10 November 2026, and Gemini 2's on 12 November 2026.
In short
- Folio Refresh reaches the same four places as PhotoSweeper — folders, Photos, Lightroom Classic and Capture One — lets you scan, review and clean your first 100 photos free before a $14.99 one-time unlock, steers away from frames where someone blinked, and is the only one of the five that can also shrink videos, photos and Live Photos instead of deleting them.
- PhotoSweeper is the closest match on where it looks, at the same $14.99 one-time price on the Mac App Store.
- Gemini 2 is the one to pick if you want duplicate videos found and new duplicates flagged as they arrive. It has no catalog support.
- Duplicate Photos Fixer Pro also reaches Google Drive and Dropbox. On a Mac it does not open Lightroom catalogs, or Capture One's.
- Excire Foto 2025 is a full photo organiser rather than a duplicate finder. Like Folio Refresh it judges open eyes and smiles, and it adds a wider set of AI culling tools. It costs about $200 and works on photos imported into its own catalog.
Feature by feature
| Feature | Folio Refresh | PhotoSweeper | Gemini 2 | Duplicate Photos Fixer Pro | Excire Foto 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Where it looks | |||||
| Folders and external drives | Plus network volumes | Plus Google Drive and Dropbox | Photos imported into its own catalog | ||
| Apple Photos library | Copies go to a review album | Album | Deletes, with Restore | Marked album | |
| Lightroom Classic catalog | Marked Rejected, backup and Undo | Rejected flag | Windows version only | Excire Search, a separate plug-in | |
| Capture One catalog | Tagged Red, backup and Undo | ||||
| What it finds | |||||
| Identical copies | |||||
| Similar photos | Three settings | Adjustable without rescanning | |||
| Bursts and photo series | By time taken | By date | |||
| Camera RAW | |||||
| Faces: eyes open, smiles | In similar photos and series | ||||
| Duplicate videos | |||||
| Choosing and removing | |||||
| Suggests the copy to keep | Rules you can reorder, and locks | Auto Mark | Smart Select | Auto-Mark | AI ranking |
| Quality score | Apple's model, on the Mac | Its own model | |||
| Undo | Put Back from the Trash; catalog Undo | Trash, Rejected or album | Restore | Photos' Recently Deleted | |
| Watches for new duplicates | Duplicates Monitor | ||||
| Shrinks videos, HEIC, Live Photos | |||||
| Works on the Mac, nothing uploaded | Except its cloud drives | ||||
| Price | |||||
| Price | $14.99, one-time | $14.99 (€17.99 in Ireland), one-time | $19.99 a year on the Mac App Store; direct from MacPaw, $23.40 a year or $44.95 once | $14.99, one-time | About $199–229, one-time |
| Free version or trial | Scan and review free; first 100 photos cleaned free | Free scan; 7-day trial | Trial | ||
“Not listed” means neither the app's listing nor the reviews we read say either way. Prices are in each app's own currency and change; check the store before you buy.
Folio Refresh, one feature at a time
- Find every exact copy of a photo on your Mac
- Find the resized, cropped and edited versions of the same photo
- Keep the best frame of every burst
- Know which photo to keep, and why
- Clear duplicates from Photos, Lightroom Classic and Capture One, not just folders
- Clear duplicates without the fear of losing a photo
- Make big videos and photos smaller without deleting them
One job at a time
- A duplicate photo finder for Mac: what it finds, where it looks, and what it doesn't do
- Duplicates and similar photos in Lightroom Classic
- Duplicate photos in a Capture One catalog
How we checked
We make Folio Refresh, so read this with that in mind. Every entry for another app comes from its App Store listing, its maker's website or a published review, not from our own testing; where those did not say, the table says “Not listed” rather than guessing. If something here is wrong or out of date, tell us and we will correct it.
Sources
Try it on your own photos.
Free to try: scan, review and clean your first 100 photos. Then $14.99 once, no subscription. For macOS 15 or later, Apple silicon and Intel.
Or get it from the Mac App Store: the same free 100 photos, the same price.